A policy based management architecture for large scale active communication systems

An initial design for a policy based management system combining conventional hierarchical control and significant local autonomy is described. A critical part of the design is a scheme of partial guarantees for policy distribution and execution. This scheme renders explicit the non-determinism that is implicit in policy based control schemes that include conflict resolution, and to some extent replaces the need for conflict resolution. Some preliminary implementations of the design are described, and implications for further work are discussed.