Patent ID: 8683545

Claim:
A method for federating policies from multiple policy providers comprising: at least one computing device identifying a plurality of distinct policy providers, each maintaining at least one policy for a Web service, wherein each policy is a condition or requirement of the Web service, wherein a first one of the distinct policy providers provides a quality of Service (QoS) policy for the Web service, wherein a second one of the distinct policy providers provides a policy for a monitoring requirement for the Web service, wherein a third one of the distinct policy providers provides a policy for a security requirement for the Web service, wherein the first one, the second one, and the third one of the distinct policy providers are different runtime environment entities supporting operation of the Web service, wherein the first one, the second one, and the third one of the distinct policy providers are independent of one another; at least one computing device establishing a federated policy exchange service of a federated policy server having a policy provider plug-in for each of the distinct policy providers, wherein the federated policy server is independent of any of the distinct policy providers; the federated policy exchange service, which is a Web service that federates policy data about other Web services, receiving requests for policies from a plurality of policy requesters, wherein each request comprises a service_id used to uniquely identify the Web service; the federated policy exchange service dynamically connecting to a plurality of the policy providers to determine policies applicable to each of the requests, wherein the determined policies for the requests comprise the Quality of Service policy, a policy for the monitoring requirement, and a policy for the security requirement; the federated policy exchange service receiving results comprising policies from the policy providers; the federated policy exchange service determining the results applicable to each of the requests; the federated policy exchange service processing the results to generate a response; and the federated policy exchange service providing the response to each policy requester responsive to each of the requests, wherein the response satisfies the Quality of Service policy, the policy for the monitoring requirement, and the policy for the security requirement.