The
high-tech industry has spent decades creating computer systems with ever mounting
degrees of complexity to solve a wide variety of business problems. Ironically,
complexity itself has become part of the problem. As networks and distributed
systems grow and change, they can become increasingly hampered by system deployment
failures, hardware and software issues, not to mention human error. Such scenarios
in turn require further human intervention to enhance the performance and capacity
of IT components. This drives up the overall IT costs-even though technology component
costs continue to decline. As a result, many IT professionals seek ways to improve
their return on investment in their IT infrastructure, by reducing the total cost
of ownership of their environments while improving the quality of service for
users.Self managing computing helps address the
complexity issues by using technology to manage technology. The idea is not new
many of the major players in the industry have developed and delivered products
based on this concept. Self managing computing is also known as autonomic computing.
The term autonomic is derived from human biology. The autonomic nervous system
monitors your heartbeat, checks your blood sugar level and keeps your body temperature
close to 98.6°F, without any conscious effort on your part.
In much the same
way, self managing computing components anticipate computer system needs and resolve
problems with minimal human intervention.Self
managing computing systems have the ability to manage themselves and dynamically
adapt to change in accordance with business policies and objectives. Self-managing
systems can perform management activities based on situations they observe or
sense in the IT environment. Rather than IT professionals initiating management
activities, the system observes something about itself and acts accordingly. This
allows the IT professional to focus on high-value tasks while the technology manages
the more mundane operations.
