4. The method of claim 3 , wherein determining the predefined weights assigned to the plurality of policy assertions of each of the plurality of endpoint policy alternatives comprises performing a table look-up procedure to determine the predefined weights assigned to each of the plurality of policy assertions.
3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the endpoint policy alternatives are expressed in an extensible markup language (XML), and further comprising parsing the plurality of endpoint policy alternatives to discover the policy assertions of each of the plurality of endpoint policy alternatives.