WebSphere brand IBM WebSphere Telecom Web Services Server, Version 7.1

Administering the Service Policy Manager

The Service Policy Manager (SPM) manages hierarchical policy definitions and service subscriptions for requesters. The key benefits of this component are a common database for the management of requesters, services and subscriptions; support for attaching policies to managed entities; and hierarchical resolution of policies enabling rich policy resolution with easy administration.

A service policy defines a piece of runtime configuration data for a particular service. Service policies can be associated directly with requesters (as part of a subscription) to provide personalization of service delivery. It is defined as a name and a value, with the interpretation of the service policy performed by message processing or application logic.

Accessing SPM

Your applications access the Service Policy Manager (SPM) through a Web service, which enables the SPM to be deployed and managed independent of the applications that utilize it.

Because the SPM uses a Web services interface, it must be integrated with your network environment. The SPM recognizes policies as data, which it manages and stores, but the services that define and use these data are solely responsible for interpreting it.

As an alternative to invoking Web service operations, the SPM console provides a graphical interface with which you can manage entities like requesters, services, subscriptions, and policies. For details on its use, refer to the topic Launching the Service Policy Manager console.

There is also a scripting (MBean) interface for batch operations, such as adding policies for Web services.

Default policies

Policy information in the incoming request is overridden by a returned policy configuration for the Service Policy Manager (SPM). This applies to any matching policies. The non-matching policies will not be removed from the incoming request.

Subscriptions, services, and subscribers

A subscription is an association of a requester to a service or a specific service operation. Within a subscription, a set of policies may be defined that characterize the behavior of the use of a service by the requester. A requester which has a subscription is a subscriber. The Service Policy Manager (SPM) provides a storage capability and access mechanism to enable the definition of requesters, services and subscriptions that associate services with requesters. Policies may be attached to each of these, and are resolved using a hierarchical algorithm.

For example, service level agreements, which represent the terms of a contract between the entity owning the requester and the provider, may be expressed as a set of policies that manage the use of the service.

Note: This component is not a subscriber data or service data management system; it is a subscription policy management system. Management of subscriber data and service data is outside the scope of this component.



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