Patent ID: 7844741

Claim:
A gateway for interfacing between content provider servers and a communication network for delivery of content to user devices, the gateway comprising a work flow manager comprising: a process automation component for interfacing with operators and defining according to operator inputs required work flows; a traffic gateway for managing execution of traffic flow for delivery of content; a policy engine for interfacing with the process automation component and with the traffic gateway; wherein each of the process automation component, the policy engine, and the traffic gateway execute workflow instances; and wherein the policy engine workflow instances act as decision points, and the process automation component workflow instances and the traffic gateway workflow instances act as enforcement points; and wherein the policy engine comprises: policy decision nodes, each having a traffic policy, a management policy, and a decision server, traffic nodes communicating with the decision servers, management nodes communicating with the decision servers; and wherein the management nodes access the operator-level workflow model and the traffic nodes access a traffic-optimized work flow model; wherein the decision point workflow instances execute work flow rules to determine compliance of work flows with a service level agreement and generate responses to requests from the enforcement point workflow instances; wherein the traffic-optimized workflow model comprises a content provider hash table, each entry in said table having a random-access set of protocol objects which the policy engine will process as required by a current traffic protocol, said protocol objects point to protocol usage rate objects, the protocol usage rate objects invoking increment methods on content provider usage rate objects, and wherein the policy engine recognizes that traffic exceeds a service level agreement if any of the invoked increment methods exceed a maximum usage rate.