International Business Machines Corporation

John K Alex

Reinhard Theodor Buendgen

Jeffrey S Lucash

Juergen P Schneider

Chun-Shi Chang

Thomas Lumpp

Rong-Sheng Lee

Peter Richard Badovinatz

Gregory D Laib

An autonomic computing system and method determine that a desired end state cannot be reached, determine that an acceptable sub-state can be reached using at least one of priority ratings, conditional relationship specifications, and alternative relationship specifications, and place the computing system in an acceptable sub-state. The priority ratings can contain an attribute assigned to a policy definition that determines a sequence for applying the policy definition. The attribute can be 'mandatory', a numerical value, or 'not required'. The conditional relationship specifications have policy definitions that are applied when the state of a specified resource meets a predetermined requirement. An alternative relationship specification has policy definitions and/or conditional relationship specifications that are applied when the state of a specified resource does not meet a predetermined requirement.

Policy driven autonomic computing-programmatic policy definitions

An autonomic computing system and method determine policy definitions () and a set of available actions (); monitor resources distributed within the system; determine if the system is at a desired end state; and modify resource states by sending instructions for the resources to perform available actions. The policy definitions () specify: start order between resources, prioritization between resources, conditional activation of policies, desired end state of resources, and location limitation of resources. The system and method receive status information from available resources, and monitor and modify the system until it reaches the desired end state. The policy definitions () can be determined by specifying a user-defined system end state and resource relationships. The policy definitions () can further harvest implicit relationships between resources, via self-discovery, and underlying relationships among resources.

Policy driven autonomic computing-specifying relationships

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John K Alex