Patent ID: 8078553

Claim:
A method for managing a network, the method comprising: receiving, at a network that uses a component based architecture, at least one contract comprising one or more components, wherein the contract is a collection of fundamental behaviors with each behavior being further refined and/or protected by a set of operations associated with the contract; mapping a first operation in the set of operations associated with the contract to a policy rule event associated with at least one policy rule; mapping a second operation in the set of operations associated with the contract to at least one policy rule condition associated with the policy rule; mapping a third operation in the set of operations associated with the contract to a policy rule action associated with the policy rule wherein the policy rule action triggers an implementation of at least one other policy rule, wherein the policy rule action is associated with the policy rule event of the other policy rule; and mapping a fourth operation in the set of operations associated with the contract to a policy rule condition associated with the other policy rule; wherein the first operation is an invocation operation, wherein the invocation operation is one of a remote and local request for execution of a service; wherein the second operation is a precondition operation, wherein the precondition operation specifies parameters that must be true for a method to be called; wherein the third operation is a functional behavior operation, wherein a functional behavior specifies a set of actions to be performed based on the invocation operation; and wherein the fourth operation is a post-condition operation, wherein the post-condition operation specifies what is to occur when the method successfully completes.