Autonomic Computing

INTRODUCTION
"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them." - Alfred North Whitehead
This quote made by the preeminent mathematician Alfred Whitehead holds both the lock and the key to the next era of computing. It implies a threshold moment surpassed only after humans have been able to automate increasingly complex tasks in order to achieve forward momentum.
There is every reason to believe 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 I/T 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 shortage of skilled I/T workers to manage all of the systems. The high-tech industry has spent decades creating computer systems with ever- mounting degrees of complexity to solve a wide variety of business problems. Ironically, complexity itself has become part of the problem. It’s a problem that's not going away, but will grow exponentially, just as our dependence on technology has.
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 nervous systems regulates and protects our bodies.
This new model of computing is called autonomic computing. The good news is that some components of this technology are already up and running. However, complete autonomic systems do not yet exist. This is not a proprietary solution. It's a radical change in the way businesses, academia, and even the government design, develop, manage and maintain computer systems. Autonomic computing calls for a whole new area of study and a whole new way of conducting business.
WHAT IS AUTONOMIC COMPUTING?
“Autonomic Computing” is a new vision of computing initiated by IBM. This new paradigm shifts the fundamental definition of the technology age from one of computing, to one defined by data. Access to data from multiple, distributed sources, in addition to traditional centralized storage devices will allow users to transparently access information when and where they need it. At the same time, this new view of computing will necessitate changing the industry's focus on processing speed and storage to one of developing distributed networks that are largely self-managing, self-diagnostic, and transparent to the user.
The term autonomic is derived from human biology. The autonomic nervous system monitors our heartbeat, checks our blood sugar level and keeps our body temperature close to 98.6 °F, without any conscious effort on our part. In much the same way, autonomic computing components anticipate computer system needs and resolve problems —with minimal human intervention. However, there is an important distinction between autonomic activity in the human body and autonomic responses in computer systems. Many of the decisions made by autonomic elements in the body are involuntary, whereas autonomic elements in computer systems make decisions based on tasks you choose to delegate to the technology. In other words, adaptable policy — rather than rigid hard coding determines the types of decisions and actions autonomic elements make in computer systems.
Key Elements of Autonomic Computing
The elements of autonomic computing can be summarized in to 8 key points.
Knows Itself
An autonomic computing system needs to "know itself" - its components must also possess a system identity. Since a "system" can exist at many levels, an autonomic system will need detailed knowledge of its components, current status, ultimate capacity, and all connections to other systems to govern itself. It will need to know the extent of its "owned" resources, those it can borrow or lend, and those that can be shared or should be isolated.
Configure Itself
An autonomic computing system must configure and reconfigure itself under varying (and in the future, even unpredictable) conditions. System configuration or "setup" must occur automatically, as well as dynamic adjustments to that configuration to best handle changing environments
Optimies Itself
An autonomic computing system never settles for the status quo - it always looks for ways to optimize its workings. It will monitor its constituent parts and fine-tune workflow to achieve predetermined system goals.
Heal Itself
An autonomic computing system must perform something akin to healing - it must be able to recover from routine and 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.
Protect Itself
A virtual world is no less dangerous than the physical one, so 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
Adapt Itself
An autonomic computing system must know its environment and the context surrounding its activity, and act accordingly. It 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 -- in a word, adapting.
Open Itself
An autonomic computing system cannot exist in a hermetic environment. While independent in its ability to manage itself, it must function in a heterogeneous world and implement open standards -- in other words, an autonomic computing system cannot, by definition, be a proprietary solution.
Hide Itself
An autonomic computing system will anticipate the optimized resources needed while keeping its complexity hidden. It must marshal I/T resources to shrink the gap between the business or personal goals of the user, and the I/T implementation necessary to achieve those goals -- without involving the user in that implementation
Autonomic Computing and Current Computing-A Comparison
In an autonomic environment, system components —from hardware such as desktop computers and mainframes to software such as operating systems and business applications —are self-configuring, self-healing, self-optimizing and self- protecting. These self-managing attributes can be compared as given in the table.