IBM's autonomic computing initiative

Great articel. With the advent of corporations outsourcing their operations to such such service level companies as HP, EDS and IBM. Some form of automated administrative controls are required to address the leveling requirement of the operational system hardware, software and internet service levels. Manual processe is error prone, inefficient and cannot react to the just-in-time service levels.
Cheers
AB

There's nothing new about the idea that (software or hardware) systems should regulate themselves wherever possible. It's just that this principle has only received lip-service as long as it's been much cheaper for vendors to largely ignore it and customers haven't insisted.

There are plenty of examples of autonomous computing around: imagine trying to fly a modern airliner or fighter without self-healing, fail-safe software -- or even run a zseries mainframe without global resource management.

I suspect that the people who are unduly wary of self-managing systems simply don't realize how much they already rely on them.

If vendors have finally wrapped their heads around the idea that software must run without constant human attention it can only be to the good. Maybe we'll start to see IT as a business tool again, and not just a cost centre employing an army of technicians.

Celia Redmore
http://www/sysprog.net