Patent ID: 7412503

Claim:
A method for execution in a policy management system, comprising: dynamically introducing a new attribute into a policy for the policy-managed system, without requiring a change to a policy manager, by executing steps that comprise operating at least one sensor coupled to the policy-managed system to dynamically discover a value of at least one existing metric; associating a new attribute with the discovered value of the at least one existing metric; incorporating the new attribute into a policy; and storing the policy for future use, where operating further comprises determining if the new attribute is directly measurable by the at least one sensor, and if it is not, determining if a definition of the new attribute currently exists and if it does, determining from the new attribute definition the identity of at least one metric having a metric value required to determine a value of the new attribute, obtaining the metric value of the at least one required metric from a corresponding one of the sensors, and determining the value of the new attribute from the obtained at least one metric value, where the attribute definition comprises at least one of a formula specified by a user and a method that determines the value of the new attribute from existing information.