I love buzzwords and catch phrases. Judicious use of the rightbuzzword can make you appear wise beyond your abilities. Autonomiccomputing is just such a phrase. It has a nice ring to it. It alsohas some substance and portends a trend in computing we all willwelcome.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels published the Manifesto ofthe Communist Party in 1848. Some 69 years later, in October1917, the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia. In 2001, IBM publishedthe Autonomic Computing Manifesto. Manifesto is a word with ahighly charged connotation. I will presume IBM (I pick on IBM, butall the major players in this game are pursuing similar strategies)is looking to the revolutionary sense of the wordas in the nextrevolutionary thing in computing. I also will presume IBM is notexpecting us to wait 70 years for autonomic computing to become areality.

So What Is It?
Essentially autonomic computer (AC) systems are those that have theability to manage themselves without human intervention orinterference. The name is derived from the autonomic nervoussystem, that part of the nervous system that controls involuntarybut necessary body functions such as digestion and temperaturecontrol. Most of the functions performed by my body are performedwithout my direction. I consciously begin to run, and my bodyresponds in a number of subconscious ways. My heart beat andrespiration rates increase. My muscles begin to convert glycogen toenergy, my liver begins to convert fat to glycogen, and sweatglands begin secretion to carry away excess heat. The bodysautonomic nervous system controls and commands thousands uponthousands of discrete tasks in order for my body to functionproperly. An autonomic computing system would work in a similarmanner. For example, as more users come online with increaseddemand for information, an autonomic computing system would bringmore resources online, adding processing power, memory, and I/Ochannels as necessary.

The analogy doesnt end here. Our bodies are self-healing. We areattacked by a virus, and internal defense mechanisms spring intoaction. The ability to self-heal is a desirable characteristic ofAC.

Enough!
I would hesitate to go too far with the nervous system/autonomiccomputing comparison. Depending on your beliefs, the human bodyeither has had a few billion years of evolutionary process or theintervention of a divine being to create the autonomic nervoussystem. Present- day computer scientists will have significantlyfewer resources available.

In fact, the autonomic nervous system (ANS) has three distinctfunctional units: the parasympathetic system, which works to saveenergy and resources; the sympathetic nervous system, which isresponsible for reacting to crisis; and the enteric nervous system,which is a collection of ganglia, or nerve cells, that function asa type of second brain and control the gastrointestinal tract,pancreas, and gall bladder. Suffice it to say the ANS is a verycomplex system that automatically controls a very complex organism.The theory of autonomic computing systems entails just suchcomplexity.

If you dont like the terminology, take heart. Autonomiccomputing systems alternatively have been called holisticcomputing, ROC (recovery-oriented computing), self-healingtechnology, and introspective computing. It all comes down to thesame thingself-managed computing systems.

Why?
It appears what we are asking for are more complex systems than wenow have. We all operate in heterogeneous technology worlds inwhich we struggle to work with seemingly incompatible,inconsistent, disparate systems. Is adding another layer ofcomplexity going to make our life easier?

Yes, if you believe the AC theorists. It is, in fact, thecomplexity of present-day systems that drives the need for AC. IBMsmanifesto declares that dealing with complexity is the single mostimportant challenge facing IT. Complex systems are pushing theenvelope of the human capability to manage them. Systems now are sointerconnected and diverse it has become virtually impossible topredict actual results of interaction between components andsystems. We do not have the luxury of knowing everything will workas designed until we go live. And live is not the environment inwhich we want to sort out unplanned results.

In theory, self-managing AC systems can solve these complexityproblems. At least that is the party line. It often is expressedlike this: The people responsible for the smooth running of theseinterconnected systems are starting to get in the way. Look outIthink theyre talking about you.

Do Computing Systems Need People?
The second reason or rationale for AC directly addresses the peopleissue apart from the complexitywith some mixed messages. ITinfrastructures require increasingly greater amounts of skilledmanpower. That manpower comes at a significant expense. Salariesroutinely are a larger part of IT budgets than infrastructure orsoftware. AC systems will eliminate large parts of that staff need.That makes sense. Here comes the mixed messageaccording to IBM:Unfilled IT jobs in the United States alone number in the hundredsof thousands. Even in uncertain economic times, demand for skilledIT workers is expected to increase by over 100 percent in the nextsix years.

OK. So the real reason is we cant find enough skilled ITworkers? Tell that to my friend who is a very qualified ITprofessional and has been looking for work for six months. Or, forthat matter, how about the three billion people in the world whocurrently live on less than $2 a day. Couldnt they be trained forIT jobs? The real reason is money, and I dont mean thatpejoratively. The bottom line is a very good reason to makeappropriate business/IT decisions. Autonomic computing systems willbecome a reality when the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) is lessthan conventional methodologies.

What Constitutes AC?
The IBM manifesto lists eight characteristic elements of autonomiccomputing. I will examine four basic concepts of self-managedsystems as described by J.O. Kephart and D.M. Chess (from IBMsThomas J. Watson Research Center) in an article in the IEEEJournal.

1. Self-Configuration. Take a look at yourcorporate Web site. Now take a look at the drawings and flow chartsthat describe it. Do they match? Do you really know what role eachbox plays? Large Web sites have become so complex with banks of Webservers and data servers and middleware that it is very difficultto map the system much less keep it properly configured. We blendtogether different technologies that require different expertise toconfigure and keep afloat. Once it is all up and running, we oftenare hesitant to make any changes. We often put off upgradingsystems simply because we dont know how the resultant system willperform. Introducing even a single new component into a complexsystem can bring the system to its knees.

An autonomic system will know itself. When a new component isintroduced into that system, it will recognize and register thatnew component. It will take a snapshot of itself before introducingthe new component. The system then can perform regression testingor use heuristic techniques to determine the effect of the newcomponent. If necessary, the system can roll back to the previousstate.

Some of these techniques already exist. Windows XP has theability to roll itself back to a prior state if a particular bit ofsoftware corrupts the system. The key to AC is to build entiresystems that can configure and reconfigure themselves.

2. Self-Optimization. Such optimizationprovides for a system to strive continually to improve systemperformance. This will take many forms: A Web farm will bring moreservers online during periods of peak demand. Software componentsautomatically will check to see whether a more recent version ofthemselves is available. Operating systems continually will checkfor updates. Once again, some of this is a current reality. Iarrive at work and find my OS has downloaded the latest update andis seeking permission to install it. Subsystems relentlessly willcache data and attempt different methodologies in order to becomemore efficient. A self-optimizing system always looks for ways tooptimize.

3. Self-Healing. AC systems will detect,diagnose, and repair problems. Self-monitoring systems immediatelywill become aware of hardware failures, software problems, andnetwork bottlenecks and act to repair or bypass them. The car Idrive is able to detect a burned-out taillight bulb and immediatelyswitch to a backup bulb. Computer systems will do the same thing,detecting read errors on a hard drive and immediately switch overto a properly operating backup drive. Periodically, the lastremaining IT guy can come by and replace all the bad drives.Software problems can be fixed in a variety of waysby reinstallinga corrupt file or rolling the system back to the last workablestate.

4. Self-Protection. Firewalls and AV softwarework, but we still rely on human intervention to analyze intrusionsand configure these systems. AC systems will be not only self-awarebut aware of their environment and act accordingly. They must beprepared to react to large-scale attacks and take appropriateaction. They also must possess the ability to analyze incrementalchanges in the environment that may constitute subtler orless-direct threats. I see a problem here. We all know the biggestthreat to any system is humanusually inadequate password schemes orprotection. How will an autonomic system react to a human threat?How will it detect it? Who will win the final man vs. machinebattle? Do you remember this little bit of movie dialogue?

Dave: Hal, I wont argue with you anymore. Open the doors.
Hal: Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore.Goodbye.

(And let us not forget IBM released its manifesto in 2001, thevery year of the above conversation in 2001: A Space Odyssey, andthe fact that HAL is IBM with a one-letter shift.)

All Together Now
I salute the concept of autonomic computing. Vendors already havetaken the first (and second) steps down this road. It is relativelyeasy to find individual pieces of hardware or software solutionsthat possess the basic functionality of AC. The tough part isgetting all this stuff to work togetherremember that our world isheterogeneous. For large-scale AC to become reality, standards haveto be developed and cross-vendor, cross-platform alliances andagreements must be made. Until that time, we will have only apartial solution. But a partial solution is better than none.

A Scary Thought
There is yet another reason to implement AC systemsto hide thecomplexity from the user. And that may not be such a good idea.Hiding complexity only may ensure we are unable to deal with it.Technology is becoming more complex. Electronic devices arediagnosed and repaired by swapping out modules. Software developersincreasingly are using higher-level languages. Much development nowis accomplished on virtual machines. Autonomic computing willprovide another layer of abstraction on already abstract systems. Ibelieve it is possible we could reach such a state of advancedtechnology that we will lose sight of how to build the systems thatbuild the systems. Self-healing is good; self-protection is good;self-optimizing is good. What is not good is accepting thepostulate computer systems must become more complex. Perhaps weshould be examining ways to design simpler systems instead oftrying to make certain more complex systems are alwaysnecessary.