Towards simplified specification of policies in different domains

Policies can be used for the configuration and management of existing services, possibly at runtime, without having to change their implementation. They declaratively specify the behavior of these services in certain circumstances and can be used in areas like security or quality of service. In order to make the policy specification as effective as possible, specific policy languages have been defined for many different areas. We present a policy ontology where specific policy languages are created as simple extensions of a generic policy model. In addition, by explicitly representing (and mapping) the domain the policies are applied to, domain concepts can be used directly inside policies. As a result, policies can be more targeted towards different areas and domains.