Patent ID: 8516547

Claim:
A computer program product embodied on a non-transitory computer readable medium for facilitating communication, comprising: at least one directory containing policy data for a plurality of entities stored therein, including: storing first policy data of a first one of the entities, the first one of the entities including a group defined by a role associated with a user and the first policy data used for authorization of the user, and storing second policy data of a second one of the entities, the second one of the entities including a data center and the second policy data used for control of access to information of the data center; computer code for receiving a message from the user for being transmitted in a network to the data center, the message for accessing by the user the information of the data center; computer code for, in response to the receipt of the message, identifying the first policy data of the group and the second policy data of the data center; computer code for, in response to the receipt of the message, merging the first policy data of the group and the second policy data of the data center to produce a combined policy; evaluating the combined policy with respect to the received message; determining whether the message is associated with a policy violation, based on the evaluation of the combined policy; rejecting the message when the determination is that the message is associated with the policy violation; and transmitting the message when the determination is that the message is not associated with the policy violation.