Patent ID: 7058947

Claim:
A policy management architecture comprising: multiple consumers that seek to allocate resources to perform one or more computing-based tasks; activity data structures created by the multiple consumers, the activity data structures associated with the one or more computing-based tasks to be performed by the multiple consumers; a policy manager configured to prioritize the activity data structures according to one of multiple policies that defines which of the activity data structures are to be allocated the resources; a resource manager to manage the resources and allocate the resources to the activity data structures based on a priority ordering of the activity data structures by the policy manager; the policy manager including a kernel component that resides at a kernel level, a user component that resides at a user level and an interaction buffer configured to facilitate communication between the kernel component and the user component; and wherein the user component comprises: an activity list of the activity data structures; a policies component configured to maintain the policies which are implemented to prioritize the activity data structures; and a dispatch engine configured to maintain the activity list and to dispatch the activity list to the policies component.