Introduction to Autonomic Computing

Abstract: Autonomic computing is inspired by the human autonomic nervous system that has developed strategies and algorithms to handle complexity and uncertainties, and aims at realizing computing systems and applications capable of managing themselves with minimum human intervention.

Autonomic nervous system of human

By reading this paper you can gain the knowledge about Autonomic Computing. I will detail it under the following sub topics.
 1.0 Introduction
 2.0 Why need Autonomic?
 3.0 Major Researches 
           3.1 Research projects in Autonomic computing.
           3.2 University research projects in autonomic computing
4.0 Four basic elements of autonomic computing
           4.1self-configuring
           4.2self-healing
           4.3self-optimizing
           4.4 self-protecting
           AutonomicComputing Vs Current Computing
5.0 Autonomic computing architecture
6.0. Autonomic computing today
           6.1. Initiatives of autonomic computing 
           6.2. Benefits
           6.3. Applications
7.0 What happen if does not have autonomic in the future?
8.0 Autonomic Computing Research Issues and Challenges
9.0 Future direction of Autonomic computing
10.0 Conclusion

1. Introduction

Think for a moment about one such system at work in our bodies, one so seamlessly embedded we barely notice it, the autonomic nervous system. It tells your heart how fast to beat, checks your blood’s sugar and oxygen levels, and controls your pupils so the right amount of light reaches your eyes as you read a book. It monitors your temperature and adjusts your blood flow and skin functions to keep it at 98.6ºF. It controls the digestion of your food and your reaction to stress; it can even make your hair stand on end if you are sufficiently frightened. It carries out these functions across a wide range of external conditions, always maintaining a steady internal state called homeostasis while readying your body for the task at hand[10].

But most significantly, it does all this without any conscious recognition or effort on your part. This allows you to think about what you want to do, and not how you will do it.For example you can run for the train without having to calculate how much faster to breathe and pump your heart, or if you will need that little dose of adrenaline to make it through the doors before they close. It’s as if the autonomic nervous system says to you, don’t think about it. I have got it all covered. That precisely how we need to build computing systems, an approach we propose as autonomic computing.

The term and technology of autonomic computing is unfamiliar to most IT people. However, it will become familiar and understood after reading this paper. Today, IT organizations are faced with the growing challenge of supporting the needs of the corporate enterprise with a reduced budgets and persistent or growing computing demands. For many enterprises, the challenge is compounded by complex architectures and distributed computing infrastructures that were developed over the last 20 years. This situation has caused system management costs to escalate while budgets and corporate spending are shrinking.

Solving this problem requires a new computing model, one that allows for efficiencies in IT infrastructure and resources. Indeed one such model is now emerging. IBM calls it autonomic computing. This is a new methodology for managing enterprise computing environments. Autonomic computing is a new approach that enables software to operate intelligently and dynamically, basing decisions on IT policies and service requirements. Top hardware vendors, such as IBM, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and others are looking at how to develop servers, operating systems and system management tools and services that encompass the fundamental requirements of autonomic computing.

This paper describe about the autonomic computing by first describing the need of autonomic nature in section 2.0 and the major researches of autonomic computing in section 3.0. This section basically describe about the researches of IBM and the main characteristics introduce by them and finally about the research projects in Autonomic computing. Next section (4.0) about the four basic elements of autonomic computing, Self-configuring (4.1), Self-optimizing (4.2), Self-healing (4.3) and Self-protecting (4.4). Then you can get knowledge about the autonomic computing architecture in section 5.0, then about the current situation in autonomic computing in section 6.0, Autonomic computing today. Then section 7.0 describes the importance of autonomic computing by describing the situation if not having this sort of concept. Next section (8.0) is about autonomic computing research issues and challenges. After that you can see the future direction of autonomic computing in section 9.0. Then you can get the overall idea about autonomic computing by reading the conclusion part. So read carefully and get the clear idea.

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