Patent ID: 7890938

Claim:
A method to normalize data characteristics between applications implemented in a computer-readable medium and to process on a computer for performing the method, comprising: identifying a first application having first data characteristic and a second application having second data characteristic, the first and second data characteristic automatically parsed from metadata associated with the first and second applications, the first and second applications perform different functions from one another are each associated with a different application system and each application is associated with a different networking system from the other application, and the first and second data characteristics are at least associated with different data types from one another and the first and second data characteristics associated with different naming conventions for one another; determining from the first data characteristic and the second data characteristic a most restrictive data characteristic, and the most restrictive data characteristic is one that is required by the first application and the most restrictive data characteristic is also accepted and applied by the second application when the second application permits a less restrictive data characteristic and the second application does not initially require the most restrictive data characteristic, and the most restrictive data characteristic is associated with password security, and the most restrictive data characteristic automatically resolved by evaluating the first and second data characteristics; and issuing a policy for accessing the first and second applications, the policy enforces the most restrictive data characteristic when accessing both the first and second applications, and the policy is enforced against a user when the user attempts to access the first and second application with the first or second data characteristic ensuring that the access uses the most restrictive data characteristic before access is granted to the user, and the most restrictive data characteristic defines attributes for data used by the first and second applications, the attributes include data types, data lengths, acceptable values for data fields, data character sets, acceptable value ranges for the data fields, and data character sets for the data, and the policy defines syntactic and semantic logic for enforcement and dynamic modification.