Goals and Conflicts in Telephony

Abstract

Goals are abstract, user-oriented objectives for how a system should behave. To be made operational, they are refined into lower-level policies that are executed dynamically. It is explained how previous work on policy-based management has been enhanced with a separate goal system that allows goals to be specified, analysed, refined, and achieved. It is shown how conflicts can arise at several levels among goals, and how these conflicts are detected and handled. Although the approach is general, it is illustrated through an application to Internet telephony.