Autonomic Computing - Autonomic Systems

Autonomic Systems

A possible solution could be to enable modern, networked computing systems to manage themselves without direct human intervention. The Autonomic Computing Initiative (ACI) aims at providing the foundation for autonomic systems. It is inspired by the autonomic nervous system of the human body. This nervous system controls important bodily functions (e.g. respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure) without any conscious intervention.

In a self-managing autonomic system, the human operator takes on a new role: instead of controlling the system directly, he/she defines general policies and rules that guide the self-management process. For this process, IBM defined the following four functional areas:

• Self-configuration: Automatic configuration of components;
• Self-healing: Automatic discovery, and correction of faults;
• Self-optimization: Automatic monitoring and control of resources to ensure the optimal functioning with respect to the defined requirements;
• Self-protection: Proactive identification and protection from arbitrary attacks.

IBM defined five evolutionary levels, or the autonomic deployment model, for its deployment: Level 1 is the basic level that presents the current situation where systems are essentially managed manually. Levels 2 - 4 introduce increasingly automated management functions, while level 5 represents the ultimate goal of autonomic, self-managing systems.

The design complexity of Autonomic Systems can be simplified by utilizing design patterns such as the model-view-controller (MVC) pattern to improve concern separation by encapsulating functional concerns.