IBM Manifesto: Bring on Autonomic Computing

The convergence of information technology and biology is one of the most exciting areas of exploration now occurring in the research world, says Nicholas M. Donofrio, senior vice president of technology and manufacturing at IBM. Although the technology industry has made phenomenal advances in storage density, processor performance and communication bandwidth, it still does not compare to what exists in the organisms and systems created by Mother Nature.

"Today's enormous computing power is primitive compared to our biological systems," said Donofrio, Tuesday afternoon at a keynote speech at PC Expo in New York's Jacob Javits Convention Center. "We need to learn how to manage complexity, and many of the answers lie in biology."

Donofrio outlined a broad vision of what technology has to do in order to make global communication systems self-managing and self-maintained--especially in a time of decreasing IT staffs. For example, he said there is a lot we can learn from studying ant colonies, which have been able to design and execute highly simple but complex systems with global order.

He also used the example of+the autonomic nervous system in most living organisms. It is so seamlessly embedded, that it tells your heart how fast to beat, check your blood pressure, stimulates adrenaline when you need it and controls the amount of light passing through your eyes--all done on its own. It's no surprise that the Internet was actually inspired by neurological biology--the study of how the nervous system communicates.

Donofrio says IBM is proposing that autonomic capabilities, such as those that run the human nervous system, should be developed for global computing systems--ones that can exist only after the technology industry has developed and built a power grid that can sustain such a system.

"Computing on demand needs an intelligent infrastructure," he says.

Historically, mainframe computers--because they handle mission-critical data--have had levels of self-regulation and self-diagnosis built in. And these machines now boast availability rates in the 99.999 percent range. But IBM wants to take this technology to a new level. Big Blue has committed a portion of its research and development budget to Project eLiza for autonomic computing for servers.

"Despite the downturn, our economy will continue to be fueled by these innovations," Donofrio says.

Building these kinds of systems will not be easy, he says. The means to accomplish this evolutionary step include universal standards, a painstaking process that many in the industry support more in talk than in action. Companies need to understand that the Internet is not a purely consumer phenomenon; the proliferation of handheld devices has not guaranteed the success of e-commerce. Although there is no doubt that the Internet is everywhere, universal connection is still out of our reach.

"Companies need to work together and embrace standards," Donofrio says.