Autonomic

computing

Autonomic computing (AC) is distributed

computing resources with self-managing
characteristics, adapting to unpredictable
changes while hiding intrinsic complexity
to operators and users. Initiated by IBM in
2001, this initiative ultimately aimed to
develop computer systems capable of
self-management, to overcome the rapidly
growing complexity of computing systems
management, and to reduce the barrier
that complexity poses to further growth.[1]

Description
The AC system concept is designed to
make adaptive decisions, using high-level
policies. It will constantly check and
optimize its status and automatically
adapt itself to changing conditions. An
autonomic computing framework is
composed of autonomic components (AC)
interacting with each other. An AC can be
modeled in terms of two main control
schemes (local and global) with sensors
(for self-monitoring), effectors (for self-
adjustment), knowledge and
planner/adapter for exploiting policies
based on self- and environment
awareness. This architecture is sometimes
referred to as Monitor-Analyze-Plan-
Execute (MAPE).

Driven by such vision, a variety of

architectural frameworks based on "self-
regulating" autonomic components has
been recently proposed. A very similar
trend has recently characterized significant
research in the area of multi-agent
systems. However, most of these
approaches are typically conceived with
centralized or cluster-based server
architectures in mind and mostly address
the need of reducing management costs
rather than the need of enabling complex
software systems or providing innovative
services. Some autonomic systems
involve mobile agents interacting via
loosely coupled communication
mechanisms.[2]

Autonomy-oriented computation is a
paradigm proposed by Jiming Liu in 2001
that uses artificial systems imitating social
animals' collective behaviours to solve
difficult computational problems. For
example, ant colony optimization could be
studied in this paradigm.[3]
Problem of growing
complexity
Forecasts suggest that the computing
devices in use will grow at 38% per year[4]
and the average complexity of each device
is increasing.[4] Currently, this volume and
complexity is managed by highly skilled
humans; but the demand for skilled IT
personnel is already outstripping supply,
with labour costs exceeding equipment
costs by a ratio of up to 18:1.[5] Computing
systems have brought great benefits of
speed and automation but there is now an
overwhelming economic need to automate
their maintenance.
In a 2003 IEEE Computer article, Kephart
and Chess[1] warn that the dream of
interconnectivity of computing systems
and devices could become the "nightmare
of pervasive computing" in which
architects are unable to anticipate, design
and maintain the complexity of
interactions. They state the essence of
autonomic computing is system self-
management, freeing administrators from
low-level task management while
delivering better system behavior.

A general problem of modern distributed

computing systems is that their
complexity, and in particular the
complexity of their management, is
becoming a significant limiting factor in
their further development. Large
companies and institutions are employing
large-scale computer networks for
communication and computation. The
distributed applications running on these
computer networks are diverse and deal
with many tasks, ranging from internal
control processes to presenting web
content to customer support.

Additionally, mobile computing is

pervading these networks at an increasing
speed: employees need to communicate
with their companies while they are not in
their office. They do so by using laptops,
personal digital assistants, or mobile
phones with diverse forms of wireless
technologies to access their companies'
data.

This creates an enormous complexity in

the overall computer network which is hard
to control manually by human operators.
Manual control is time-consuming,
expensive, and error-prone. The manual
effort needed to control a growing
networked computer-system tends to
increase very quickly.
80% of such problems in infrastructure
happen at the client specific application
and database layer. Most 'autonomic'
service providers guarantee only up to the
basic plumbing layer (power, hardware,
operating system, network and basic
database parameters).

Characteristics of 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.[6] 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 types of property referred to as self-
star (also called self-*, self-x, or auto-*)
properties. [7]
 1. Self-configuration: Automatic
configuration of components;
2. Self-healing: Automatic discovery,
and correction of faults;[8]
3. Self-optimization: Automatic
monitoring and control of resources
to ensure the optimal functioning with
respect to the defined requirements;
4. Self-protection: Proactive
identification and protection from
arbitrary attacks.

Others such as Poslad[7] and Nami and

Sharifi[9] have expanded on the set of self-
star as follows:
1. Self-regulation: A system that
operates to maintain some
parameter, e.g., Quality of service,
within a reset range without external
control;
2. Self-learning: Systems use machine
learning techniques such as
unsupervised learning which does not
require external control;
3. Self-awareness (also called Self-
inspection and Self-decision): System
must know itself. It must know the
extent of its own resources and the
resources it links to. A system must
be aware of its internal components
 and external links in order to control
and manage them;
4. Self-organization: System structure
driven by physics-type models
without explicit pressure or
involvement from outside the system;
5. Self-creation (also called Self-
assembly, Self-replication): System
driven by ecological and social type
models without explicit pressure or
involvement from outside the system.
A system's members are self-
motivated and self-driven, generating
complexity and order in a creative
 response to a continuously changing
strategic demand;
6. Self-management (also called self-
governance): A system that manages
itself without external intervention.
What is being managed can vary
dependent on the system and
application. Self -management also
refers to a set of self-star processes
such as autonomic computing rather
than a single self-star process;
7. Self-description (also called self-
explanation or Self-representation): A
system explains itself. It is capable of
 being understood (by humans)
without further explanation.

IBM has set forth eight conditions that

define an autonomic system:[10][11]

The system must

1. know itself in terms of what

resources it has access to, what its
capabilities and limitations are and
how and why it is connected to other
systems;
2. be able to automatically configure
and reconfigure itself depending on
the changing computing environment;
3. be able to optimize its performance
to ensure the most efficient
computing process;
4. be able to work around encountered
problems by either repairing itself or
routing functions away from the
trouble;
5. detect, identify and protect itself
against various types of attacks to
maintain overall system security and
integrity;
6. adapt to its environment as it
changes, interacting with neighboring
systems and establishing
communication protocols;
 7. rely on open standards and cannot
exist in a proprietary environment;
8. anticipate the demand on its
resources while staying transparent
to users.

Even though the purpose and thus the

behaviour of autonomic systems vary from
system to system, every autonomic
system should be able to exhibit a
minimum set of properties to achieve its
purpose:

1. Automatic: This essentially means

being able to self-control its internal
functions and operations. As such, an
autonomic system must be self-
 contained and able to start-up and
operate without any manual
intervention or external help. Again,
the knowledge required to bootstrap
the system (Know-how) must be
inherent to the system.
2. Adaptive: An autonomic system must
be able to change its operation (i.e.,
its configuration, state and
functions). This will allow the system
to cope with temporal and spatial
changes in its operational context
either long term (environment
customisation/optimisation) or short
 term (exceptional conditions such as
malicious attacks, faults, etc.).
3. Aware: An autonomic system must be
able to monitor (sense) its
operational context as well as its
internal state in order to be able to
assess if its current operation serves
its purpose. Awareness will control
adaptation of its operational
behaviour in response to context or
state changes.

Evolutionary levels
IBM defined five evolutionary levels, or the
autonomic deployment model, for the
deployment of autonomic systems:
 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.[12]

Design patterns
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.[13]

Control loops
A basic concept that will be applied in
Autonomic Systems are closed control
loops. This well-known concept stems
from Process Control Theory. Essentially, a
closed control loop in a self-managing
system monitors some resource (software
or hardware component) and
autonomously tries to keep its parameters
within a desired range.

According to IBM, hundreds or even

thousands of these control loops are
expected to work in a large-scale self-
managing computer system.

Conceptual model

A fundamental building block of an

autonomic system is the sensing
capability (Sensors Si), which enables the
system to observe its external operational
context. Inherent to an autonomic system
is the knowledge of the Purpose (intention)
and the Know-how to operate itself (e.g.,
bootstrapping, configuration knowledge,
interpretation of sensory data, etc.)
without external intervention. The actual
operation of the autonomic system is
dictated by the Logic, which is responsible
for making the right decisions to serve its
Purpose, and influence by the observation
of the operational context (based on the
sensor input).

This model highlights the fact that the

operation of an autonomic system is
purpose-driven. This includes its mission
(e.g., the service it is supposed to offer),
the policies (e.g., that define the basic
behaviour), and the "survival instinct". If
seen as a control system this would be
encoded as a feedback error function or in
a heuristically assisted system as an
algorithm combined with set of heuristics
bounding its operational space.

See also
Autonomic networking
Autonomic nervous system
Organic computing
Resilience (network)

References
1. Kephart, J.O.; Chess, D.M. (2003), "The
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Loke (2003). Awareness and Agility for
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673. doi:10.1109/DEXA.2003.1232098 (htt
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98) . ISBN 978-0-7695-1993-7.
S2CID 15846232 (https://api.semanticscho
lar.org/CorpusID:15846232) .
3. Jin, Xiaolong; Liu, Jiming (2004), "From
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m.com/autonomic/manifesto/autonomic_c
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5. 'Trends in technology', survey, Berkeley
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m/definition/autonomic-computing) .
7. Poslad, Stefan (2009). Autonomous
systems and Artificial Life, In: Ubiquitous
Computing Smart Devices, Smart
Environments and Smart Interaction (http
s://web.archive.org/web/2014121011132
4/http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/people/stef
an/ubicom/index.html) . Wiley. pp. 317–
341. ISBN 978-0-470-03560-3. Archived
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10. "IBM Research | Autonomic Computing |
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External links
International Conference on Autonomic
Computing (ICAC 2013) (https://www.us
enix.org/conference/icac13)
Autonomic Computing by Richard Murch
published by IBM Press (http://www.ibm
pressbooks.com/bookstore/product.as
p?isbn=013144025X)
Autonomic Computing articles and
tutorials (https://web.archive.org/web/2
0090314094832/http://www.ibm.com/d
eveloperworks/tivoli/autonomic/library/
1016/1016_autonomic.html)
Practical Autonomic Computing –
Roadmap to Self Managing Technology
(https://web.archive.org/web/20070316
012547/http://www-03.ibm.com/autono
mic/pdfs/AC_Practical_Roadmap_White
paper.pdf)
Autonomic computing blog (https://web.
archive.org/web/20060516142318/htt
p://www-03.ibm.com/developerworks/b
logs/page/DaveBartlett)
Whitestein Technologies – provider of
development and integration
environment for autonomic computing
software (http://www.whitestein.com)
Applied Autonomics provides Autonomic
Web Services (http://www.appliedauton
omics.com)
Enigmatec Website – providers of
autonomic computing software (http://w
ww.enigmatec.net)
Handsfree Networks – providers of
autonomic computing software (http://w
ww.handsfreenetworks.com)
CASCADAS Project: Component-ware for
Autonomic, Situation-aware
Communications And Dynamically
Adaptable, funded by the European
Union (https://web.archive.org/web/200
81014180217/http://www.cascadas-pro
ject.org/)
CASCADAS Autonomic Tool-Kit in Open
Source (http://sourceforge.net/project/s
howfiles.php?group_id=225956)
ANA Project: Autonomic Network
Architecture Research Project, funded by
the European Union (https://web.archive.
org/web/20080515230115/http://www.
ana-project.org/)
JADE – A framework for developing
autonomic administration software (htt
p://raweb.inria.fr/rapportsactivite/RA20
08/sardes/uid32.html)
Barcelona Supercomputing Center –
Autonomic Systems and eBusiness
Platforms (http://www.bsc.es/autonomi
c)
SOCRATES: Self-Optimization and Self-
Configuration in Wireless Networks (http
s://web.archive.org/web/200811192259
03/http://www.fp7-socrates.org/)
Dynamically Self Configuring Automotive
Systems (https://web.archive.org/web/2
0180308060801/http://dyscas.org/)
ASSL (Autonomic System Specification
Language) : A Framework for
Specification, Validation and Generation
of Autonomic Systems (http://www.assl.
vassev.com)
Explanation of Autonomic Computing
and its usage for business processes
(IBM)- in German (ftp://ftp.informatik.uni
-stuttgart.de/pub/library/medoc.ustuttg
art_fi/DIP-2787/DIP-2787.pdf)
Autonomic Computing Architecture in
the RKBExplorer (https://web.archive.or
g/web/20080828060019/http://www.rkb
explorer.com/explorer/#display=mecha
nism%2D%7Bhttp://resex.rkbexplorer.co
m/id/resilience-mechanism-87d79b11%
7D)
 International Journal of Autonomic
Computing (http://www.inderscience.co
m/ijac/)
BiSNET/e: A Cognitive Sensor
Networking Architecture with
Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization
(https://web.archive.org/web/20090622
110049/http://dssg.cs.umb.edu/wiki/ind
ex.php/BiSNET/e)
Licas: Open source framework for
building service-based networks with
integrated Autonomic Manager. (http://li
cas.sourceforge.net)

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