Model-Based Performance Anticipation in Multi-Tier Autonomic Systems: Methodology and Experiments

This paper advocates for the introduction of performance awareness in autonomic systems. The authors' goal is to introduce performance prediction of a possible target configuration when a self-feature is planning a system reconfiguration. They propose a global and partially automated process based on queues and queuing networks modelling. This process includes decomposing a distributed application into black boxes, identifying the queue model for each black box and assembling these models into a queuing network according to the candidate target configuration. Finally, performance prediction is performed either through simulation or analysis.