[news.eclipse.stp] Re: Is there any Policy meta-model in STP?

[Juan Pedro Silva <jpsilvagallino@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everybody, I'm back to report my findings on this one.
There are numerous "policy metamodels" ([1],[2],[3], among others), some 
more generic than others, some more specific. Nonetheless, there is no 
such thing as a standard metamodel, for what I have found so far. On the 
other hand, there are also plenty of policy languages available nowadays 
(a survey was published in [4] some time ago, [5] enumerates on security 
policy languages only) in which to express policies, and those could be 
abstracted into one common metamodel.

In my humble opinion, the closest thing to an standard metamodel for 
Policy should be the Policy Package from the CBDI-SAE Meta Model for SOA 
Version 2.0. The metamodel itself has been tested and reviewed by 
industry, an has been proposed to the OMG. SOAML, the OMG future 
standard, does not address Policy, regretfully. I would suggest you 
consider using this part of the metamodel as a base for a Policy 
intermediate model.

I hope this adds to the discussion of the need or not of such metamodel 
in STP.
Best regards,
                    Juan Pedro

[1] Model-Driven Engineering of a General Policy Modeling Language, 
Kaviani, N. et al.
[2]  A Model-driven Approach to Service Policies, Jegadeesan, H., 
Balasubramaniam, S.
[3] Service-Oriented Model-Driven Development: Filling the 
Extra-Functional Property Gap, Ortiz, G., Hernández. J.
[4] A Survey of Policy Specification Approaches,  Damianou, N. et al.
[5] A Study of Languages for the Specification of Grid Security 
Policies, Naqvi, S. et al.


Juan Pedro Silva escribió:
> Hi Oisin, apologies accepted.. ;-)
> Sorry it took me so long to get back this time, as I thought this one 
> wouldn't be answered.
>
> Thanks for your answer. I will do some research this week on available 
> generic metamodels for representing policies. If I come across 
> something interesting (a standardization process ideally, anything 
> meaningful  there is no such thing)  I'll get back and propose something.
>
> Thanks again, and best regards,
>                                                  Juan Pedro
>
> Oisin Hurley escribió:
> > Hi Juan,
> >
> > Juan Pedro Silva wrote:
> > >                           I am taking a look at STP features, in 
> > > particular the policy stuff, and suddenly began wondering if STP was 
> > > using some sort of meta-model for policies in the same spirit as it 
> > > uses the intermediate metamodel.
> >
> > I've long considered that it would be a good idea to include such a 
> > metamodel in the intermediate metamodel - basically
> > to enhance it with policy-related entities. Then it would be a more 
> > complete thing. It's possible to represent policies given the 
> > existing structures in IM, but it's not as clear as have policy 
> > entities as first class model participants.
> >
> > Short answer to your question is - we haven't gone much
> > distance down that road, above and beyond the basic internal models 
> > that are kept by the editors, but I think
> > it's fair to say we are open to ideas in this space.
> >
> > Could you maybe give a little more detail, or examples
> > of what you had in mind?
> >
> >  best regards
> >    Oisin
> >
> > p.s. apologies for my tardiness in replying - I've been spending my 
> > time getting the Galileo contributions ready!