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Initiative for Autonomic Computing Gains Strength
museumpeace writes "Tired of fixing your computer? What if your system broke down two billion
miles from the nearest spare part or human? NASA has just held a
colloquium where Ulster University computer science researcher Roy Sterritt was invited to present his ideas on Autonomic Computing. In the last few years,the leading system vendors have realized 'There is no less than a crisis today in three areas: cost, availability and user experience.' There has been a fair amount of academic research since customers like NASA see in it the potential to make remotely operated complex systems sustainable. It all makes for some very cool systems design work and there are lots of further research opportunities. Just don't forget what it may do to your job."
If we no longer have to fix computers, then someone has to program the machine how to fix itself.
- Your stupidity got you into this mess, why can't it get you out? -Will Rogers
Yah the leading system vendors have realized there's a crisis. How else are they going to sell more systems if the ones in place now aren't dangerously unstable? They could probably explode at any minute, are toxic, and will probably delete all my data at any second.
I better go buy a new computer.
Automated nanobots
Now we need only worry about the whole thing going berserk, killing the crewmembers, and attempting to destroy the Earth.
JMD
When all else fails, feel free to panic.
If self-fixing computers become the norm, that means half the phone calls I get from friends will stop.
Hmmm....bug or feature?
It won't matter until it can fix user errors anyway.
This is another way of starting a sig with this and ending it with that.
It's just about impossible that a tecnic that makes robotic spacecraft all that much more self sufficient will be confined to just robotic space travel for long. If NASA is successful, we will see widespread robotization here on Earth as a consequence.
30 years from now, this will be characterized as a 'mere spin off', and instead of bitching about Moonrocks, ignorant people will be saying "We spent billions to send robot probes to Pluto, and all we got was a bunch of contaminated Helium."
Who is John Cabal?
grep -c icrosoft *
In the ZDNet article on Google's inner workings that was posted earlier on /., Urs Hölzle mentions that in the larger Google clusters, 2 machines per day will fail. They compensate for this with triple redundancy, good software for failover control, and a staff of 800(!) computer scientists. Needless to say, not everyone could manage this... there's definitely an enterprise niche for system autonomy. This also brings IBM's eFuse technology for self-repairing chips to mind.
perl -e 'foreach(values %SIG){$_="IGNORE";}while(){}'
For years SAN's from EMC, fault tolerant serves from Stratus, etc. have all had the ability to phone home when they detect a failure is imminent or has occured. Usually the customer doesn't realize there's even a problem until a service tech shows up with replacement parts.
Of course getting this down to the level of home users is still a long way away...
I don't think this applies to most of us.
I for one welcome our new miniature overlords.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
.. consists of a dog and a man (and a computer of course).
the man is there to feed the dog, the dog is there to keep the man away from the computer
"Just don't forget what it may do to your job."
You're two years too late. Now would you like fries with that computer?
"Hal, I think you should install the latest service pack, you have been acting funny lately"
"I cant do that Dave"
"It's too bad she won't live, but then again who does?" - Gaff
There's a race, Manufactuer's building smarter computers and AOL signing up dumber users.
So far AOL is winning
code name for this project 'SkyNet' by any chance?
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Software algorithms sufficiently complex so as to appear as though heuristic. This seems to be a new application for AI.
People have been trying to make systems easier to manage for years. Unfortunately, it's not enough to have the desire to make systems self-managing, you also need good ideas for how to do it, and those are still lacking as much as they always have been.
Give the guy credit, though, for seeing a good opportunity. Industry will believe in this silver bullet like they have done in the ones before.
Unfortunately, the real research will still take decades to complete, and then this area will have a bad name just like most of the other overhyped technologies before it.
I have been talking about this for years...
If the autonomous systems NASA and the ESA have put into the void are any indication, I don't think we have much to worry about - the costs will be prohibitive for all save the largest organizations, and true autonomy (in the form of robotics) will have a whole range of other problems (imagine your main file server getting up and walking out of the data center because it mistakenly assumed there was a fire...)
The key, in the interrum is make yourself indispensible. If you have the mindset that you are a code grinder/monkey and that is all you want to be, then your days are numbered. Your goal should instead be becoming the guy who can put together a complete solution (data, application, hardware, network) in short order that works, scales well, and is extensible by your users. You need to be a jack-of-all-trades. That is how to survive and gain esteem in the eyes of your clients and peers, as I see it.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
http://www.quantiva.com/
The problem is that we still rely on hardware! Software is limitless without hardware, but the stupid hardware people insit on limiting our abilities! If we didn't have hardware, the software would be easy to fix, just patch it and upload the new version!
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
Your computer is dangerously insentient, infected with spyware, unoptimized, and currently broadcasting your IP TO THE WORLD! In short, your computer isn't even as smart as a monkey.
Just think of all of the service contract revenue that would be lost. Also, how much R&D money will go into systems like these? Then, what will the price of these systems (at least early ones) look like to make back that money? Most importantly, what about people like me that use the phrase 'Honey, the computer just died' as an excuse to upgrade???
Blue screen of never mind, I took care of it.
I wouldn't consider this to be new...rather it's the idea of this that is starting to propigate.
CISCO's new 92 terabit/sec router already has some of these features. The OS they used to build the system supports many of these features (high availability, self healing, etc).
http://www.qnx.com/markets/networking_telecom/cisc o/
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps5763/index.h tml
It's a self healing system. It uses the services and functionality of the OS to accomplish it.
QNX's networking system is really neat because it allows processes to be independent of where they actually run on a network. And the network can be anything (i.e. a backplane, Ethernet, whatever). So it lends itself to solving such a problem.
I understand that autonomic computing is really neat. I understand that it is a dificult problem mathematically and programatically. It doesn't help me much or the average end user. I see the next great advance in computers being a technology that was discovered/invented 20 years ago. It won't be the technology, but how it is presented to the user. I understand that research for these two projects can occur concurrently. I would just rather see people get excited about using old technology that actually works rather than new tech that hasn't even been invented yet
"brxref
No program could ever be smart enough to handle the things that the dumbest users can come up with.
Imagine, the dumbest of the dumb can out(dumb)smart the smartest programs.
It will be a cold day on Earth after Ice-9 is released that a machine will be able to detect its dvd-rom drive being used as a coffee holder.
I think it is funny that this talk automatically moved (no i didn't read the article you insensitive clod!) to nanobots and self-repairing systems! Why wouldn't it be cheaper/easier (is today in compu hardware anyway, ever see someone 'fix' a computer... they take old modular bits and replace them with new modular bits), do to have heavily redundant systems... So throw away that hydrospanner, just activate seconday, or tieriary systems, or 4th etc... use advanced minituration to stuff as many redundant systems as you can in a given application... that way when say your "astrocraft" is like 8 billion km away you are not worried about complex decision making nano bots repairing damaged components... something no work, /autoflipswitch/, bingo new system online... rinse and repeat. Dunno seems simple to me...
neway my 2 cents,
DarthVain
.. but what makes me sceptical about machines that can fix themselves - if they're smart enough to understand what's wrong, they shouldn't break in the first place..
Actually, increasing system reliability and restartability isn't fundamentally all that hard. It's trying to do it in the presence of the vast amount of dreck on Microsoft systems that makes it difficult.
The IBM links says, under "The Solution":
In conventional system design, the Rs of reliable systems are: (1) Robust, (2) Repair, and (3) Redundant.
Biological systems use all three methods to varying degrees but the problem is that biological systems do not survive as individuals, they survive as a species by tolerating a high degree of failure and using a fourth R: Replication.
For computer systems, this biological systems approach would mean replacing every component of the system on a regular basis the way all the cells in the human body are completely replaced every seven years. Periodically, you would throw out the entire system and replace it with two or three new ones that have undergone a period of testing and development.
The replication approach, which is key to the survival of biological systems, runs counter to most business thinking, which is to replace multiple systems with fewer, more powerful systems. This limits reliability to the first three Rs.
There is much that can be done to increase reliability with these 3 Rs but if biological systems are any indication (as well as some theoretical limits), they are inadequate.
The problem of reliability could ultimately be a flaw in the way business works rather than a technical problem.
"Deteriorata" - National Lampoon - 1972
"There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark."
We already have self-repairing computers. Haven't you ever used to Windows Troubleshooter?!
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
As we modelled the eye to build cameras, the brain to build computers, the ear to build speakers, we're modeling our autonomic nervous system to build the next evolutionary step in computing. Networks that independently and reflexively self -regulate, configure, repair, optimize, and protect in the same sense as an immune system or an automatic pilot.
This would allow the network to automatically manage server load balancing, process allocation, monitor the power supply, automatic update software and fend off threats without having to consult the administrator.
For example, if an application starts performing badly, it automatically receives increased resources. If software or hardware fails, it doesn't even ripple the end users coffee. An autonomous computing system would roll out new patches, monitor and adjust the resources singular end users need, set up servers... all the mundane stuff.
The complexity of integrating and managing the latest hardware and software into existing systems is destroying the advantages of economies of scale. Autonomic computing is one way of insulating the IT administrator from the mundane complexities and freeing them to do other more interesting things like understanding the needs of the business more, or modelling and automating existing business processes.
On a larger scale, it spells an evolutionary move towards a decentralized global self-configuring, self-healing, self-optimizing, and self-protecting nervous system. Since Autonomic Computing can look for patterns in data and extrapolate to predict future events, deployed on a global scale, the spin-offs would be very interesting.
~~~~~~~
Thoughts on the Emergence of Computing Intelligence
I'd like to tangentisize (I love neology) and qualify that most "user errors" are the result of poor user interface and interaction design, the third of the crises listed in the article.
Indeed, the term "self-fixing" implies to me recoverability from problems including erroneous input. Input validation with range checking for reasonable values and informative feedback can catch a good amount of bad input. Add reversability and recoverability to the mix and you have a friendly software layer protecting against "user error."
Users are not machines, they are, to be cliched, only human. Bad input needs to be expected, and design decisions should reflect that.
This post's Alpha Echo three five unit will go 100% failure in 5 minutes. Commander Taco, please go eva to replace unit Alpha Echo three five...
My addition to the 'maybe this is not such a great idea' meme would be the idea that longer life-spans for adults would lead to an increasingly greater de-valuation of children, whom would increasingly be seen as competition rather than the hope of a new generation.
**>>BELCH
What if your system broke down two billion miles from the nearest spare part or human?
I think they'll do a one-day deliver on this for a small surcharge.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Just don't forget what it may do to your job.
Where in history has scientific advancement *not* removed the need for some jobs? When we're basically working towards efficiency the end product of all the technological revolutions will be no one needing any jobs. Self fixing machines leads to a whole mechanical metabolism for the world which humans will be able to leech off of ad infinitum.
Until, of course, our more luddite/conservative/squeemish types rise up and destroy the atmosphere trying to kill all the machines, in which case we'll all get stuck in glass tubes with machines leeching power off of us.
Direct away from face when opening.
As a matter of face, it would be quite logical to notice, that completeness in computing autonomy could be achived only in one way; and that way is basically making computing all-sufficient. Which, in general, meens for it not to require any human intervention after the system's in standard execution mode == up'n'running. That is, the solution for this problem is quite simple and extraordinarily xomplex & important for humanity @ the same time: AI, in the classical acceptance, creation of a ...
- Zx-man (zx-man@ukr.net)
I think this is how that Nomad robot from Star Trek got its start...
Sterilize soil samples...fix user errors...sterilize...users? Sterilize users! Got it!
In Soviet Russia, Regenerationg Robotic Overlord with shotguns, machine guns, and available rocket launchers watches you.
So if your computer system is smart enough to adapt to troubles around it and internal "breakdowns" by changing itself, isn't this simply machine evolution?
How long until same computers consider meat puppet life forms to be a troubling virus infecting their planet, and standing in the way of fixing "breakdowns?"
I'd expect something incredibly retarded like that from a Clemson Tiger. Go get your ass beat by Texas A&M again, idiot.
Then start turning them down one by one. When one turns out to be a techno-sycophant, go meet someone new. Eventually you'll winnow away the users.
Me, I'm past that hurdle. I just figured "why the hell am I wasting my life helping Bill Gates get away with selling crap" and layed down a "I don't do Windows" policy. Since the majority of people that were mooching computer support from me were Windows users, that decreased my workload quite a bit... and yes it did reveal one or two to be less than true friends, but the majority I have always known were not in that category.
Someone had to do it.
I have a friend who worked on this a bit for NASA. Its purely hardware based stuff, to do with fixing broken chips in flight and reducing the amount of redundant hardware needed. Admittedly its a very specialised area but an interesting one.
The solution she was looking at was to use FPGAs to implement the hardware and when part of the silicon became damaged to use software to redesign the layout of the circuits to route around the damaged area.
Its basically a SAT problem, finding a suitable SAT solving algorithm seems to be the main problem with this.
Now the one good thing I see is sharing computing cycles. But even to do this, you have to define the mentioned service contracts, so you'll end up with a lot of accounting ("micropayments") for who helped whom when. Of course, IBM would like to do that accouting.
Now this "self-healing system" idea that IBM is hyping everytime it gets the chance, isn't that just a rehash of Suns/Oracles idea of server-based software, or of autoupdates? All this sounds good at first, but you might remember a lot of software that was free and that was "updated" with a newer versions which was not free or reduced in capability. Or maybe the update just hogs more of my precious disk space - you'd die laughing if you knew how precious little is left on my OS partition. Not to speak of conflicts between updates. Or tons of conflicts like "cannot install Firefox because it conflicts with existing version of IE".
Now all this stuff about allocating resources for me, for example if I need more storage space .. How can I trust any free provider of storage space to be online at the moment I need him or at all? I might just as well steganograph my data into prn pics, and upload it on p2p networks, even that approach would be more useful.
Well, it will be nice to have some of this stuff, but I'd feel safer with the stuff that is already being made in separate projects, and being made in nice separate parcels that I can control.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.