CERTIFICATE POLICY MANAGEMENT TOOL

1 . A certificate policy management tool suite, comprising:

a plurality of PKI management components including:

at least one processor comprising:

a certificate policy parser;

a certificate policy creation engine;

a certificate policy query engine;

an audit engine; and

wherein the certificate policy parser, the certificate policy creation engine, the certificate policy query engine, and the audit engine interoperate to automate certificate policy creation, interpretation, assessment, and enforcement.

2 . The certificate policy management tool suite of claim 1 , wherein the certificate policy creation is customized based on user input to the certificate policy creation engine.

3 . The certificate policy management tool suite of claim 1 , wherein the certificate policy parser reads in and parses standard certificate policies containing standard public safety options and constraints.

4 . The certificate policy management tool suite of claim 3 , wherein the certificate policy creation engine determines allowable combinations of certificate policy options based on the user inputs and constraints contained within the standard certificate policies thereby generating organization-specific operational certificate policies.

5 . The certificate policy management tool suite of claim 4 , wherein the certificate policy query engine generates a PKI management rule set in response to queries based on data obtained from the organization-specific operational certificate policies.

6 . The certificate policy management tool suite of claim 4 , wherein the certificate policy query engine generates a PKI management rule set in response to changes in the organization-specific operational certificate policies.

7 . The certificate policy management tool suite of claim 1 , wherein the audit engine compares first and second separate sets of certificate policies, and generates a report, identifying differences and incompatibilities.

8 . The certificate policy management tool suite of claim 7 , wherein the audit engine audits the certificate policy management tool to verify whether the first and second separate sets of certificate policies conform to each other.

9 . The certificate policy management tool suite of claim 7 , wherein the audit engine further generates rules that map the policies of the first certificate policy set to the policies of the second certificate policy set.

10 . The certificate policy management tool suite of claim 7 , wherein the first set of certificate policies comprises external organization operational policies, and the second set of certificate polices comprises parsed standard certificate policies.

11 . The certificate policy management tool suite of claim 7 , wherein the first set of certificate policies comprises external organization operational policies, and the second set of certificate polices comprises organization-specific operational certificate policies.

12 . A method for managing certificate policies within a public key infrastructure (PKI): comprising:

parsing standard certificate policies into combinations of certificate policy options meeting predetermined constraints;

providing the certificate policy options as user selectable certificate policy options;

creating customized certificate policies based on user selection of the selectable certificate policy options;

generating a PKI management rule set with which to manage the PKI; and

auditing the customized certificate policy to verify conformance with the predetermined constraints set by the standard certificate policies.

13 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the steps of generating PKI management rule set is triggered by receiving a certificate policy query pertaining to the customized certificate policy or changes to the customized certificate policy.

14 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the step of parsing standard certificate policies into combinations of certificate policy options meeting predetermined constraints comprises parsing a set of standard certificate policy creation rule text files.

15 . The method of claim 14 , wherein the step of parsing standard certificate policies into combinations of certificate policy options meeting predetermined constraints further comprises: modifying a policy creation rule database (PCRD) schema based on the policy creation rule text files.

16 . The method of claim 14 , wherein the step of providing the certificate policy options as user selectable certificate policy options comprises:

populating content from the policy creation rule text files into the (PCRD).

17 . The method of claim 13 , wherein the step of receiving a query pertaining to the customized certificate policy, comprises:

receiving application level policy related queries pertaining to the customized certificate policy; and

generating one or more database queries based on the received queries.

18 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the step of generating a rule set with which to manage the PKI, comprises:

retrieving certificate policy data from the customized certificate policy;

creating a rule set based on the retrieved certificate policy data; and

mapping the rule set into an application specific message.

19 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the step of auditing further comprises:

generating an audit report indicating differences between external organization certificates operational policies, standard certificate policies and the customized certificate policies.

20 . A certificate policy management tool suite having at least one processor operating to:

create a certificate policy by:

reading, by a certificate policy creation engine, a current set of certificate policy options from a certificate policy creation rules database (PCRD), the certificate policy engine and PCRD being used to manage a public key infrastructure (PKI);

providing the current set of certificate options to a user;

accepting user input in response to the current set of options;

mapping user input to appropriate certificate policy options;

storing the mapped certificate policy options;

forming a next set of certificate policy options based on the user input and constraints defined in the PCRD; and

iteratively repeating providing, accepting, mapping, storing, and forming until an acceptable set of options are formed thereby generating a customized certificate policy.

21 . The certificate policy management tool suite having the at least one processor of claim 20 , further operating to:

receive, at a policy query engine, application level certificate policy related queries pertaining to the customized certificate policy from other PKI components within the PKI;

generate one or more database queries based on the received queries;

retrieve certificate policy data from operational policy database in response to the one or more database queries;

create a rule set based on the retrieved data and the requesting PM components; and

map the rule set into an application specific response.

22 . The certificate policy management tool suite having the at least one processor of claim 21 , further operating to:

detect, at a policy query engine, changes to the customized certificate policy;

retrieve certificate policy data from the operational policy database;

create a rule set based on the retrieved certificate policy data and the requesting PKI components; and

map the rule set into an application specific message.

23 . The certificate policy management tool suite having the at least one processor of claim 21 , wherein the application level policy related queries contain requests for PKI policy configuration data.

24 . The certificate policy management tool suite having the at least one processor of claim 21 , wherein the application level policy related queries contain requests for certificate lifecycle management (CLM) operation approval.

25 . The certificate policy management tool suite having the at least one processor of claim 20 , further operating to:

create the current set of certificate policy options by:

parsing a set of standard certificate policy creation rule text files;

modifying the PCRD database schema based on the certificate policy creation rule text file;

populating the content of these files into the certificate policy creation rule database (PCRD); and

creating metadata, defining a new schema which can be used by other PKI components.

26 . The certificate policy management tool suite having the at least one processor of claim 20 , wherein the customized certificate policy comprises an organization-specific operational certificate policy.