Autonomic networking

Autonomic networking follows the concept of Autonomic Computing, an initiative started by IBM in 2001. Its ultimate aim is to create self managing networks to overcome the rapidly growing complexity of the Internet and other networks and to enable their further growth, far beyond the size of today.

The ever growing management complexity of the Internet caused by its rapid growth is seen by some experts as a major problem that limits its usability in the future. What's more, increasingly popular smartphones, PDAs, networked audio and video equipment, and game consoles need to be interconnected. Pervasive Computing not only adds features, but also burdens existing networking infrastructure with more and more tasks that sooner or later will not be manageable by human intervention alone. Another important aspect is the price of manually controlling huge numbers of vitally important devices of current network infrastructures.

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is the part of the nervous system of the higher life forms that is not consciously controlled. It regulates bodily functions and the activity of specific organs. As proposed by IBM, future communication systems might be designed in a similar way to the ANS.

As autonomics conceptually derives from biological entities such as the human autonomic nervous system, each of the areas can be metaphorically related to functional and structural aspects of a living being. In the human body, the autonomic system facilitates and regulates a variety of functions including respiration, blood pressure and circulation, and emotive response. The autonomic nervous system is the interconnecting fabric that supports feedback loops between internal states and various sources by which internal and external conditions are monitored.

The connection fabric supports the interaction with all the elements and sub systems of the autonomic system. It may be composed of a variety of means and mechanisms, or may be a single central framework. The biological equivalent is the central nervous system itself – although referred to as the autonomic system, it actually is only the communication conduit between the human body's faculties.

Consequently, it is currently under research by many research projects, how principles and paradigms of mother nature might be applied to networking.

Instead of a layering approach, autonomic networking targets a more flexible structure termed compartmentalization.

Functions should be divided into atomic units to allow for maximal re composition freedom.

A fundamental concept of Control theory, the closed control loop, is among the fundamental principles of autonomic networking. A closed control loop maintains the properties of the controlled system within desired bounds by constantly monitoring target parameters.