Patent ID: 7805449
Filing Date: 2010-09-28
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method for enterprise policy management, comprising: harvesting metadata about managed objects across network file systems residing in a computing environment, wherein the network file systems operate under various file system protocols at one or more physical locations, wherein the managed objects comprise files and directories, and wherein the harvesting comprises: configuring a management device with at least one filtering mechanism, wherein the management device is coupled to the network file systems and the metadata repository; enabling a user to define a policy rule via a user interface to the management device, wherein the policy rule comprises a condition and a corresponding action and the condition is associated with the raw metadata, the synthetic metadata or the content-based metadata; selecting from the metadata repository one or more metadata records having one or more attributes that satisfy the condition defined in the policy rule; and applying the action defined in the policy rule to one or more of the managed objects in the network file systems that are associated with the one or more metadata records, thereby changing a state of the network file systems in accordance with the policy rule.