The Hindu Business Line : Self-managing systems to make geeks' life easier

COMPUTER hardware increases in speed and capacity by factors of thousands every decade, while software piles on new and fancier interfaces nearly as fast.

Computer systems are expected to become too complex and fast for humans to effectively configure, optimise or repair. The solution? A technology that manages all by itself in a manner that is analogous to the human autonomic nervous system.

Autonomic computing systems can manage themselves and dynamically adapt to changes in accordance with business policies. Self-managing systems can perform activities based on situations they observe or sense in the IT environment.

In other words, rather than having IT professionals initiate these activities, the system observes something about itself and acts accordingly. This allows IT professionals to focus on higher-value tasks.

Autonomic computing was discussed at the 19th National Convention of Computer Engineers (Ficom 05) organised recently by the Kerala State Centre of the Institution of Engineers (India). Mr N. T. Nair, former Chairman of the Kerala State Centre, said one third to one half of the total systems budget is spent on preventing or recovering from `crashes.'

A system failure at a brokerage or credit card authorisation centre, for instance, can run up millions of dollars lost per hour in business.

Autonomic computer systems are conceptualised to mimic the involuntary nervous system that allows the human body to cope with environmental change, external attack and internal failures.

An autonomic system must have a sense of self. It should keep track of its parts, some of which may be borrowed from or lent out to other systems. And it must keep its public and private parts segregated.

Software probes, gauges and configuration controls are added to certain kinds of existing systems so that they can be monitored, tuned and even repaired automatically rather than by highly paid engineers.

Autonomic systems should also be able to heal and recover from damage by some means other than a suicidal crash.

"We are now faced with a trend towards creating computers that are capable of behaving like living creatures — self-organising and adapting to business needs, repairing themselves and allowing users to concentrate on their core business activities," Mr Nair said.

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Self-managing systems to make geeks' life easier