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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /
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Special Features:
AUTONOMIC COMPUTING LOOMS ON THE
HORIZON
Though the phrase "autonomic computing" sounds like the creation of a
sci-fi
writer's vivid imagination, it is in fact a reality -- and many vendors are
developing such technology. IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun Microsystems all
have their individual autonomic computing efforts under way. Cassat Corp. and
Stottler Henke Associates Inc., both specialty firms, are also undergoing
these initiatives.
By allowing computers to configure, heal and optimize themselves, the
industry
hopes to help organizations that use grids and other highly distributed
computing models. Such developments would allow reduced hands-on maintenance,
in addition to higher reliability and resiliency rates.
Though full adoption of such technology is close to five years away, many
systems management products are already incorporating elements of autonomic
computing.
Government agencies have also begun to take notice of these developments.
Energy Department Labs, NASA and DARPA have taken great interest, while the
IRS and other non-scientific sectors are also looking into self managing
technology for their business needs.
Proponents of the new technology strongly believe that the beginning steps,
like clear security and incident response policies, need to be implemented
now.
Because a lot of computing cost lies in the monitoring and tuning of IT
components, autonomic computing would reduce cost dramatically by erasing the
need for human intervention.
IBM, for instance, is seeking end-to-end self regulation of all their IT
environments, including hardware, middleware and applications.
Autonomic computing, in addition to cost-cutting, could offer improved
security as well. Automatic response to cyberattacks, like with DARPA's Self-
Regenerative Systems program, is hoped enhance security capabilities.
Managing complexities among multiple computers is the most important
autonomic
computing ability. Because industry and government sectors are developing more
and more distributed grid and cluster initiatives, self managing would help
jobs flow smoothly through dispersed computing nodes.
The DOE is testing Agent-Based High Availability (ABHA) system smart job
recovery software created by Stottler Henke, a software development firm, to
help clusters and grids identify problems and recover automatically.
DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) will use the software to
analyze the data from a Brookhaven National Laboratory nuclear physics
experiment. If a problem is encountered, the program will start the process
again automatically.
ABHA will start deployment on a Linux/Intel cluster with several hundred
nodes, but will become more available as demand for reliable clustering rises.
The solution will help organizations to harness cluster power nationwide,
without having to worry about access privileges to the site where the failure
occurred.
In addition, scientists at NASA are looking to use autonomic computing for
projects like the Mission Services Evolution Center, which will provide ground
and flight systems with a common architecture. The center will become
operational within the next year or two.
And the IRS is looking to incorporate the Tivoli tool suite for autonomic
computing; it currently uses the Tivoli Enterprise Console and IBM Tivoli
Monitoring 5.1. Sun Solaris servers already utilize some autonomic
functions.
By defining processes, federal IT managers will be more prepared to
automate
them. The honing of IT management practices will help to identify
relationships among components and operations.
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