Generic policy management for open service markets

The dynamic and evolutionary character of open electronic service markets with respect to both the application and the system infrastructure level requires appropriate system support mechanisms in order to dynamically configure business transactions and provide the required support services in flexible and individual ways. This paper proposes the use of policy management mechanisms to support flexible cooperation of applications and dynamic configuration of support services in electronic service markets. It argues that various such policy management mechanisms can be efficiently supported generically by a respective common policy management service. Accordingly, the paper presents a generic approach to both policy modeling and policy processing aspects of an open system support platform for electronic service markets