| Grid computing enables computers on different networks to share their resources in an organized way. Authorized users can deploy the resources as if they were in the same organization. This resource sharing environment is called a Virtual Organization (VOs). To enable an open Grid to support resource sharing between multiple heterogeneous VOs, an authorization policy management framework is required to support authorization for VOs using heterogeneous authorization systems. The challenges include dynamic Grid memberships, VO trust relationships, and heterogeneous authorization systems.;Traditional authorization policy management frameworks work well in authorization for a single VO where the participating hosts agree to follow a global authorization system. However, they are not capable of authorization policy management for multiple VOs which deploys heterogeneous authorization systems.;To solve these problems in a loose-coupling way, we propose a dynamic, distributive and heterogeneous authorization policy management framework. The framework is called Dynamic Policy Management Framework (DPMF). DPMF groups VOs of the same authorization systems to form a virtual cluster. Authorization policy management is divided into inter-cluster heterogeneous policy management, and intra-cluster homogeneous policy management. Inside a virtual cluster, the workloads of policy management can be distributed among the VOs according to their trust relationships. The Conflict Analysis with Partial Information (CAPI) mechanism is developed to make authorization decisions in open environments without complete policy information. A Heterogeneous Policy Management mechanism is developed for DPMF to support inter-cluster heterogeneous policy management. |
