US Patent 7962633 Network service management using customizable business-level rules

A service deployment device responds to events originating internally or in a network using a set of condition/action rules. The condition/action rules are defined in terms of business-level information. A rules engine in the service deployment device translates the network events to business information and uses a forward-chaining algorithm to evaluate conditions associated with the rules. Based on the evaluation, the service deployment device enables actions associated with the rules. An enterprise using the service deployment device uses the condition/action rules to deploy business policies in the network.