XACML-Based Composition Policies for Ambient Networks

Ambient Networks (AN) pose new challenges to the management discipline, and policies are considered to be an adequate solution for providing flexibility, distributed control, and self-management features. However, the current state-of the art IETF policy framework was not designed for the challenges of new 3G/4G environments such as AN. This paper presents PBMAN, a policy-based architecture and a composition framework that extends the AN architecture, where policies are intrinsically at the underlying layer by design and not as a later ad-on. The use of policies and their interaction with network composition is the main research challenge of PBMAN. The current architecture has been designed based on previous experience, on a design-implement-test development cycle. The framework was used to model a video on demand scenario, whereto composition policies based on an extended version of the XACML policy language have been written.