Cooperating Autonomic Agents for Management of Complex Systems

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Autonomic computing was proposed as a means of reducing the total cost of ownership of complex computing systems by means of self-management, or autonomic management. The paradigm of autonomic management encompasses two systems: the system to be managed, comprised of objects to be managed, their properties and relationships, and the management system, the management agents, services and components. However, the primary objective of simplifying management of complex computing systems still faces substantial challenges: a) designing and developing autonomic agents is still challenging and agents developed for one system are not easily adapted for another; b) complex systems are often comprised of subsystems which must also be managed requiring use of multiple agents; c) agents can operate independently but at times must cooperate, adding to the complexity of the design and operation; d) the management system becomes more complex requiring its own automated tools. My research addresses these challenges through the development of new approaches and methods for specifying autonomic agents and domain specific aspects of the system to be managed. It will focus on the creation of methods for specifying autonomic agents, the system to be managed, simplifying the specification of multiple agents and their interaction, enabling reuse, and underlying runtime elements for management. My vision is to create novel methods to facilitate the design, use, operation and application of autonomic methods for the management of large, complex systems. I will create a specification framework for defining management agents, associated domain information about the managed system and methods for automatically generating agents. The framework will be based on a novel object-oriented language for specifying the abstract definition of agents, domain objects and policies. Information germane to the managed system will be specified through classes of objects, their properties and relationships, as well as specification of domain-specific management elements. New approaches for agent coordination will include novel policy-based constructs to express coordination strategies and new approaches where coordination strategies are embedded in "higher-order" autonomic managers utilizing "higher-order" policies. I will develop new approaches to enable our autonomic elements to embody proactive management where autonomic agents will build predictive models to anticipate potential problems and take action so they can then be avoided. The results of the research will directly address existing challenges in the use of autonomic agents to manage large complex systems: innovative approaches and methods for simplifying the specification of autonomic agents and reuse in multiple domains; novel algorithms and methods for policy-based, multi-agent management of complex systems; new approaches supporting proactive management.