US 8,819,164 B2 · Versioning management

Abstract

Versioning management provides for efficient and effective handling of varying policy versions, client versions and client platform versions in one system. Software version negotiation provides for simplified, secure policy management in an environment supporting varying versions of the same software product. In conjunction with parameter stripping, which resolves differences among varying minor versions of a software policy, software version negotiation allows for management tools of one version to manage client software, clients and/or client platforms of another version. Policy schema translation, in conjunction with parameter stripping as needed, provides a mechanism for converting policies that normally would be impossible to interpret on varying clients and/or client platforms to policy versions that can be understood by these clients and/or client platforms. Version targeting allows an administrator to push a policy to specific clients and/or client platforms to, among other things, address identified security issues or to provide version specific application enablement or enhancement. Together, these various versioning management methodologies simplify administration of a system consisting of varying policy versions, client versions and/or client platform versions while enhancing the flexibility of the system to apply policy throughout the system or any portion thereof.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method for interfacing a client comprising a processor, a user interface, and a policy structure comprising at least one policy object and having a client policy version with a remote server comprising the policy structure having a remote server policy version, the method comprising:

executing on the processor instructions configured to:
select an identified policy version that is compatible with the client policy version and the remote server policy version hosted by the remote server;
store a policy handle for the identified policy version;
interface the policy structure of the client with the policy structure of the remote server according to the identified policy version and the policy handle;
and
upon identifying at least one unsupported policy object that is included in the remote server policy version, where the unsupported policy object is applicable to the client and is not included in the identified policy version:
ignore the at least one unsupported policy object while applying the policy objects of the policy structure that is included in the identified policy version;
and
send to the user interface a message indicating the at least one unsupported policy object to be ignored by the client while applying the policy structure.

6 more elements

A method for deploying a policy structure to at least two clients by performing policy schema translation on a device having a processor, the method comprising:

executing on the processor instructions configured to:
interpret a translation collection hosted on a client to translate a policy version of the policy structure with a policy major version value hosted on the client to a translated policy version of the policy structure with a translated policy major version value that is smaller than the policy major version value;
upon identifying at least one unsupported policy object that is included in the policy version, where the unsupported policy object is applicable to a client and is not supported by the translated policy version, exclude the at least one unsupported policy object from the translated policy version;
deploy the policy version of the policy structure to one or more clients that support the policy major version value;
and
deploy the translated policy version of the policy structure excluding the at least one unsupported policy object to one or more clients that supports the translated policy major version value.

3 more elements

A method for deploying, on a server comprising a processor, a policy structure having a policy version in response to a policy deployment command specifying as a target parameter at least one client of a client set, respective clients supporting at least one policy version of the policy structure, the method comprising:

executing on the processor instructions configured to:
identify at least one client specified by the target parameter of the policy deployment command and supporting the policy version of the policy structure;
upon identifying at least one unsupported policy object that is included in the policy version, where the unsupported policy object is applicable to the identified client and is not supported by the identified client, exclude the at least one unsupported policy object from the policy structure;
and
deploy the policy structure excluding the at least one unsupported policy object to at least one identified client.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Versioning management

Life of this patent

Versioning management

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20