Network services infrastructure systems and methods

Abstract

Network services infrastructure systems and methods are disclosed. Policies for client access to a services network and network services available in the services network are enforced at client gateways. Once authenticated and authorized at a client gateway, a client of the services network may make its own network service(s) available in the services network, use network services provided by other clients of the services network, or both. The policies are centrally managed within a services network and distributed to the client gateways. Various registries which store policies, information associated with network services, and possibly other information may also be provided.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] The present application is related to co-pending and commonly assigned U.S. patent applications Ser. No. <Attorney Docket No. 51236-34> entitled “PUBLIC AND PRIVATE NETWORK SERVICE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS AND METHODS”, and Ser. No. <Attorney Docket No. 51236-35> entitled “SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR MANAGING NETWORK SERVICES BETWEEN PRIVATE NETWORKS”, both filed of even date herewith. The entire contents of both of these co-pending applications are incorporated herein by reference.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] This invention relates generally to network services and, in particular, to infrastructures for providing network services. BACKGROUND [0003] Services for which information is distributed through a communication network are generally referred to as network services. So-called “web services” are an example of network services, and represent the next generation of web-based technology being used for automatically exchanging infor...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0017] The apparatus may also include a security module for enforcing secure end to end communication, between the authenticated client and the services network, within the services network and between services network and a destination client of the services network.

[0018] In some embodiments, the security module applies authentication and authorization actions based on the rules to communication traffic, and passes or drops the communication traffic responsive to the authentication and authorization actions. Additional security rules may also be applied to communication traffic.

[0019] The apparatus may also include a Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) proxy module operatively coupled to the policy enforcement module and configured to classify traffic associated with the authenticated client as control traffic or data traffic, to transmit control traffic comprising information associated with the network service provided by the authenticated client for publication in a services registry, and to modify SOAP information in data traffic for further processing.

[0020] A Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) proxy module may also be operatively coupled to the SOAP proxy module. In this case, the SOAP proxy module is further configured to identify received UDDI control traffic, and to forward the received UDDI control traffic to the UDDI proxy module for further processing. The received UDDI control traffic may include requests for network services lookups. The UDDI proxy module handles local or remote resolution of the requests and responds to a client which initiated each request.

Problems solved by technology

The core technology only addresses the common language and communication issues and does not directly address the onerous task of application integration.

Adding new web services business partners in an enterprise environment has always been a difficult, expensive, and time consuming process, since potential new business partners tend to have different sets of rules and standards.

There are currently no known deployment and management solutions for deploying and managing an end-to-end virtual (private) extranet web service architecture, targeting a communication network provider's space as opposed to enterprise space.

Enterprise-class products, including server-based architectures and hardware XML devices, also do not typically satisfy the high availability and speed requirements of communication network core equipment.

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