3/29/2011

Major Researches about Autonomic Computing



By reading this paper you can gain the knowledge about Autonomic Computing. I detailed 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

2.0Major Researches about Autonomic Computing

“IBM believes that we are at just such a threshold right now in computing. The millions of businesses, billions of humans that compose them, and trillions of devices that they will depend upon all require the services of the IT industry to keep them running. And it's not just a matter of numbers. It's the complexity of these systems and the way they work together that is creating a shortage of skilled IT workers to manage all of the systems. It's a problem that's not going away, but will grow exponentially, just as our dependence on technology has. In short, we can't keep computing as we have for years.

But as Mr. Whitehead so eloquently put it nearly a century ago, the solution may lie in automation, or creating a new capacity where important computing operations can run without the need for human intervention. On October 15th, 2001 Paul Horn, senior vice president of IBM Research addressed the Agenda conference, an annual meeting of the preeminent technological minds, held in Arizona. In his speech, and in a document he distributed there, he suggested a solution: build computer systems that regulate themselves much in the same way our autonomic nervous system regulates and protects our bodies.’’ [15] This is a quotation from the research web site of the IBM about autonomic computing. It shows the idea of IBM about autonomic computing.

According to the research of IBM about Autonomic Computing, they introduce eight basic characteristics the autonomic system should have.

To be autonomic, a computing system needs to “know itself”
An autonomic system will need detailed knowledge of its components, current status, ultimate capacity, and all connections with other systems to govern itself. It will need to know the extent of its "ownership" of resources, they can borrow or lend, and those that can be shared or must be isolated.

An autonomic computing system must configure and reconfigure itself under different and unpredictable conditions.
System configuration or “setup” must occur automatically, as must dynamic adjustments to that configuration to best handle changing environments.


An autonomic computing system always looks for ways to optimize its workings.
Autonomic computing system should have capability of optimizing its tasks. Optimizing means it should prioritize the tasks and also it should use optimum path to complete the goal. And the autonomic system should have ability to manage it’s resources in other word s get more product by using less resources.

Autonomic computing system must be able to recover from extraordinary events that might cause some of its parts to malfunction.
It must be able to discover problems or potential problems, then find an alternate way of using resources or reconfiguring the system to keep functioning smoothly.
Initially, “healing” responses taken by an autonomic system will follow rules generated by human experts. But as we embed more intelligence in computing systems, they will begin to discover new rules on their own that help them use system redundancy or additional resources to recover and achieve the primary objective, completing the task.


An autonomic computing system must be an expert in self-protection.
It must detect, identify and protect itself against various types of attacks to maintain overall system security and integrity.
Before the Internet, computers operated as stand alone machines. So it was fairly easy to protect computer systems from attacks such as “viruses.”
By mimicking the human immune system, autonomic system should have a “digital immune system” that can detect suspicious code, automatically send it to a central analysis center, and distribute a cure to the computer system. The whole process takes place without the user being aware such protection is in process.
To deal with malicious attacks by hackers, intrusion systems must automatically detect and alert system administrators to the attacks.
As the scale of computer networks and systems keeps expanding and the likelihood of hacker attacks increases, we will need to automate the process even further. There won’t be enough experts to handle each incident.

An autonomic computing system knows its environment and the context surrounding its activity, and acts accordingly.
This is almost self-optimization turned outward; an autonomic system will find and generate rules for how best to interact with neighboring systems. It will tap available resources; even negotiate the use by other systems of its underutilized elements, changing both itself and its environment in the process.

An autonomic computing system can not exist in a hermetic environment.
While independent in its ability to manage itself, an autonomic computing system must function in a heterogeneous world and implement open standards.

Autonomic computing system will anticipate the optimized resources needed while keeping its complexity hidden.
This is the ultimate goal of autonomic computing: the marshaling of IT resources to shrink the gap between the business or personal goals of our customers, and the IT implementation necessary to achieve those goals, without involving the user in that implementation.

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