Abstract:
As a rapidly growing field, Autonomic Computing is a
promising new approach for developing large scale
distributed systems. However, while the vision of
achieving self-management in computing systems is well
established, the field still lacks a commonly accepted
definition of ‘what’ an Autonomic Computing system is.
Without a common definition to dictate the direction of
development, it is not possible to know whether a system
or technology is a part of Autonomic Computing, or if in
fact an Autonomic Computing system has already been
built.
The purpose of this paper is to establish a
standardised and quantitative definition of Autonomic
Computing through the application of the Quality Metrics
Framework described in IEEE Std 1061-1998 [1].
Through the application of this methodology,
stakeholders were systematically analysed and evaluated
to obtain a balanced and structured definition of
Autonomic Computing. This definition allows for further
development and implementation of quality metrics,
which are project-specific, quantitative measurements
that can be used to validate the success of future
Autonomic Computing projects.
