Autonomic Computing

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Autonomic Computing
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What is Autonomic Computing?

• It is a self-managing computing model named, and
  patterned on, the human bodys autonomic nervous
  system
• It would control the functioning of computer
  applications and systems without input from the
  user, in the same way that the autonomous nervous
  system regulates body systems without conscious
  input from the individual

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Goal of Autonomic Computing

• The goal is to create systems that run
  themselves, capable of high-level functioning
  while keeping the systems complexity invisible
  to the user

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Pervasive Computing

• Autonomic computing is one of the building blocks
  of pervasive computing, an anticipated future
  computing model in which tiny even invisible-
  computers will be all around us, communicating
  through increasingly interconnected networks

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Elements in Autonomic Computing

• It must maintain comprehensive and specific
  knowledge about all its components
• It must have the ability to self-configure to
  suit varying and possibly unpredictable
  conditions
• It must constantly monitor itself for optimal
  functioning
• It must be self-healing and able to find
  alternate ways to function when it encounters
  problems

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Elements in Autonomic Computing

• It must be able to detect threats and protect
  itself from them
• It must be able to adapt to environmental
  conditions
• It must be based on open standards rather than
  proprietary technologies
• It must anticipate demand while remaining
  transparent to the user

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Future of Autonomic Computing

• According to Dan Russell, director of the User
  Sciences and Experience Group at IBMs Almaden
  Research Center, by 2010 computing will have
  become so naturalized within the environment that
  people will not even realize that they are using
  computers

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Future of Autonomic Computing

• Future smart devices all around us will maintain
  current information about their locations, the
  contexts in which they are being used and
  relevant data about the users
• Among the emerging technologies expected of the
  future are wearable computers, smart homes and
  buildings

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Future of Autonomic Computing

• Among the myriad of tools expected to support
  these are
• Application-Specific Integrated Circuitary (ASIC)
• Speech and Gesture recognition
• System on Chip (SoC)
• Microelectromechanical system (MEMS)
• Reconfigurable processors

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Vision of Autonomic Computing

• Computation will be human centered not machine
  centered

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Current machine centered

• We have pampered them in air-conditioned rooms or
  carrying them around with us
• Purpoting to serve us, they have actually forced
  us to serve them
• They have been difficult to use
• They have required us to interact with them on
  their terms, speaking their languages and
  manipulating their keyboards or mice
• They have not been aware of our needs

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Future human-centered

• Computers will be freely everywhere like oxygen
  in the air we breathe (Oxygen project by MIT)
• It will handle our goals and needs and helping us
  to do more while doing less
• We will communicate naturally eg. print that
  picture on the nearest color printer

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Oxygen Device Technologies
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Sample scenario Business Conference

• Hélène calls Ralph in New York from their
  company's home office in Paris. Ralph's E21,
  connected to his phone, recognizes Hélène's
  telephone number it answers in her native
  French, reports that Ralph is away on vacation,
  and asks if her call is urgent. The E21's
  multilingual speech and automation systems, which
  Ralph has scripted to handle urgent calls from
  people such as Hélène, recognize the word
  "décisif" in Hélène's reply and transfer the call
  to Ralph's H21 in his hotel. When Ralph speaks
  with Hélène, he decides to bring George, now at
  home in London, into the conversation.

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Sample scenario Business Conference

• All three decide to meet next week in Paris.
  Conversing with their E21s, they ask their
  automated calendars to compare their schedules
  and check the availability of flights from New
  York and London to Paris. Next Tuesday at 11am
  looks good. All three say "OK," and their
  automation systems make the necessary
  reservations.

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Sample scenario Business Conference

• Ralph and George arrive at Paris headquarters.
  At the front desk, they pick up H21s, which
  recognize their faces and connect to their E21s
  in New York and London. Ralph asks his H21 where
  they can find Hélène. It tells them she's across
  the street, and it provides an indoor/outdoor
  navigation system to guide them to her. George
  asks his H21 for "last week's technical
  drawings," which he forgot to bring. The H21
  finds and fetches the drawings just as they meet
  Hélène.

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Current element of Autonomic Computing

• Windows XP incorporates self-healing technology
• When an application crashes, the user can shut it
  down systematically, thereby preventing the
  entire system from freezing or hanging. This
  operating system also offers to report program
  errors to the Microsoft Support team.
• Further, Windows XP looks out for updates and
  automatically downloads these when available.

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Current element of Autonomic Computing

• Plug-and-play is another element of autonomous
  computing. Plug in a new device to your PC and
  the system will automatically detect it. The
  operating system will then fire up its hardware
  wizard, which guides you through the process of
  installing the appropriate drivers for the new
  device.

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Current element of Autonomic Computing

• One company that is actively working towards
  fully autonomous systems is IBM, which has an
  initiative named Project eLiza
• IBM has incorporated some elements of eLiza (now
  in phase 2 of development) in its servers. The
  company is demonstrating software called
  Enterprise Workload Manager, which monitors
  groups of servers, managing the machines and
  moving work between them without the aid of human
  administrators.

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Current element of Autonomic Computing

• Compaq is also pursuing autonomic computing. It
  is offering a suite of tools collectively called
  Proliant Essentials.
• The tool with autonomic characteristics is Compaq
  Insight Manager. This software delivers
  pre-failure alerts for Compaq ProLiant servers,
  thereby proactively detecting potential server
  failures before they result in unplanned system
  downtime

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• But once autonomous computing is adopted by
  enterprises, will service engineers and network
  administrators become redundant?
• Autonomic computing wont put people out of jobs,
  but it will minimize the number of people needed
  to do the more mundane tasks, says Van Symons,
  IBMs global executive for Project eLiza.
  Autonomic computing will raise the level of
  their positions so that they will be setting the
  policy, and not just being the equivalent of
  cable guys.

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Current element of Autonomic Computing

• An initiative similar to eLiza is Project Oceano.
  It will enable a group of Linux servers to share
  jobs, and reassign jobs when new servers are
  added or removed from the cluster.