Patent ID: 7783728

Claim:
A method for policy evaluation, comprising: generating for a computer system a plurality of sub-policies from a policy, at least one synchronization step, and a final action, where a result generated from of the plurality of sub-policies, the at least one synchronization step, and the final action is equivalent to a result generated by execution of the policy; distributing the sub-policies to corresponding sub-components in the computer system; evaluating the sub-policies, where each sub-component evaluates its corresponding one or more sub-policies as other sub-components evaluate their corresponding one or more sub-policies; synchronizing the sub-policies by using the at least one synchronization step; and performing the final action in response to synchronizing the sub-policies where the policy comprises a condition and an action and where generating further comprises generating so that each of the sub-policies comprises a sub-condition and a sub-action, where evaluating sub-policies further comprises determining that sub-conditions for given sub-policies evaluate to an evaluation value of at least two values; and for the sub-actions corresponding to the sub-conditions that evaluate to the evaluation value, performing the following steps: determining if a given sub-action is safe; and performing the given sub-action in response to the given sub-action being determined as safe, where the at least one synchronization step comprises a plurality of synchronization steps where each of the plurality of synchronization steps corresponds to a set of sub-policies; synchronizing the sub-policies further comprises synchronizing all of the sets of sub-policies by using a corresponding synchronization step for each of the sets; and performing the final action further comprises performing the final action in response to synchronizing all of the sets of sub-policies, where at least one of the at least one synchronization step comprises a plurality of sub-steps, and synchronizing further comprises synchronizing at least a portion of the sub-policies by using the plurality of sub-steps of the at least one synchronization step, where the final action comprises a plurality of sub-steps; and performing the final action further comprises performing the sub-steps of the final action in response to synchronizing the sub-policies.