Method and apparatus for distributed policy evaluation

A non-transitory computer readable medium containing an executable program for evaluating a systems management policy, in an environment comprising a plurality of domains, where the program performs steps of:

• retrieving the policy, by a first autonomic manager in a first domain of the plurality of domains, from a policy storage, wherein the policy comprises a condition and an action to be taken when the condition evaluates to TRUE, and wherein the policy expresses the condition as a plurality of sensor values related to a plurality of system values by a plurality of logical operators, and at least two of the plurality of sensor values belong to different ones of the plurality of domains;
• forwarding the policy, by the first autonomic manager, to a second autonomic manager in a second domain of the plurality of domains;
• evaluating at least a portion of the condition by the first autonomic manager, in accordance with sensor data relating to a resource managed by the first autonomic manager, before forwarding the policy;
• wherein the evaluating at least a portion of the condition comprises simplifying the condition by removing a portion of the plurality of sensor values relating to a portion of the condition that has already been evaluated;
• and
• receiving, at the first autonomic manager, at least partial evaluation results for the condition from a third autonomic manager in a third domain of the plurality of domains,
• wherein the first autonomic manager, the second autonomic manager, and the third autonomic manager are arranged in a ring configuration such that the evaluating occurs in a cascading manner.

System for evaluating a systems management policy, in an environment comprising a plurality of domains, the system comprising:

• means for retrieving the policy, by a first autonomic manager in a first domain of the plurality of domains, from a policy storage, wherein the policy comprises a condition and an action to be taken when the condition evaluates to TRUE, and wherein the policy expresses the condition as a plurality of sensor values related to a plurality of system values by a plurality of logical operators, and at least two of the plurality of sensor values belong to different ones of the plurality of domains;
• means for forwarding the policy, by the first autonomic manager, to a second autonomic manager in a second domain of the plurality of domains;
• wherein at least a portion of the condition is evaluated by the first autonomic manager, in accordance with sensor data relating to a resource managed by the first autonomic manager, before forwarding the policy;
• wherein the evaluating at least a portion of the condition comprises simplifying the condition by removing a portion of the plurality of sensor values relating to a portion of the condition that has already been evaluated;
• and
• means for receiving, at the first autonomic manager, at least partial evaluation results for the condition from a third autonomic manager in a third domain of the plurality of domains,
• wherein the first autonomic manager, the second autonomic manager, and the third autonomic manager are arranged in a ring configuration such that the evaluating occurs in a cascading manner.

System for evaluating systems management policies in an environment comprising a plurality of domains, the system comprising:

• a primary autonomic manager in a first domain of the plurality of domains, for coordinating evaluation of the policies, wherein the policies each comprise a condition and an action to be taken when the condition evaluates to TRUE, and wherein the policies each express the condition as a plurality of sensor values related to a plurality of system values by a plurality of logical operators, and at least two of the plurality of sensor values belong to different ones of the plurality of domains, and wherein at least a portion of the condition is evaluated by the first autonomic manager, in accordance with sensor data relating to a resource managed by the first autonomic manager, wherein the evaluating at least a portion of the condition comprises simplifying the condition by removing a portion of the plurality of sensor values relating to a portion of the condition that has already been evaluated, before determining the action to be taken when the condition evaluates to TRUE;
• a plurality of secondary autonomic managers, each of the plurality of secondary autonomic managers being in different ones of the plurality of domains and configured to evaluate a different portion of the condition and to report an evaluation result to the primary autonomic manager;
• and
• a policy editor storage in which the policies are stored,
• wherein the primary autonomic manager and the plurality of secondary autonomic managers are arranged in a ring configuration such that the evaluating occurs in a cascading manner,
• and wherein at least one of:
• the primary autonomic manager or the plurality of secondary autonomic managers comprises a hardware processor.