4.2 Policy Supporting Processes

The use of policies for the purpose of (automated) management entails several steps in which the policy is created, modified, reviewed, tested, processed, and finally enforced. These steps are accomplished by supporting processes, which will be described in this subsection.

First, a general description of characteristics of these processes is given, whereby the differences between active policies and the supporting processes are clarified. This differentiation will be needed in the later chapters. After that, a functional overview is given, and each of the supporting processes is described.