Patent ID: 7240015

Claim:
A multi-agent for managing system policies on a site operating in one of a plurality of system modes within a virtual network, wherein said system policies include authorization policies for controlling one of either permission or interdiction of actions by an agent, and obligation policies for specifying said actions said agent is responsible for performing, comprising: a plurality of service and device agents, at least one of which functions as a requester agent defined by at least one obligation policy, and another of which functions as an executor agent for performing an action requested by said requester agent in order to fulfil said at least one obligation policy; an authorization server operating in accordance with said authorization policies for receiving and authenticating requests from said requester agent and in response returning one of either (i) a permission authorization to said requester agent, which in response forwards said permission authorization to said executor agent for performing said action, or (ii) an interdiction to said requester agent for prohibiting said action; a policy server for (i) receiving and downloading said obligation policies into said plurality of service and device agents, (ii) for distributing said authorization policies to said authorization server, and (iii) for managing said system policies in accordance with changes in said system modes; and an event server for effecting shared communication between plurality of service and device agents.