IBM has formed the Autonomic Computing Organization to drive the
integration of technology designed to fix systems
automatically.
In its early stages, the project is focusing on IBM's storage,
Tivoli, and WebSphere products, as IBM looks to drive down data
centre management costs.
Autonomic computing introduces self-configuring, self-healing,
self-optimising, and self-protecting capabilities to the total IT
system, from desktop computers to mainframes, software
applications, and middleware, according to IBM.
IBM's Storage Systems is introducing autonomic software that allows
users to configure and manage data across large server farms as
part of its Shark product roadmap.
The company is also releasing a new version of its Tivoli software,
which has 26 new autonomic features relating largely to systems
management capabilities, including identity and storage resource
management software, said Alan Ganek, vice-president of IBM's
Autonomic Computing Organization.
IBM has also announced that its WebSphere 5.0 server, due out in
November, will contain a number of self-optimising and self-healing
features that analyse and correct problems.
In addition to the internal integration challenges the initiative
poses, analysts believe IBM also faces strong competition from
Hewlett-Packard and Sun in the development of utility
computing.
"HP has a lead with its utility computing model, and Sun has a good
story with virtualisation and manageability," said Brad Day, senior
analyst at Giga Information Group. "But [Sun] will be much more
believable if they can deliver the goods on their own Solaris
captive platforms. IBM doesn't have that luxury because they have
multiple platforms and operating systems to consider." IBM also
faces the challenge of getting its ISV partners to begin piloting
some of these new models, Day added.
Other analysts see strength in IBM's vision. "[IBM does] a good job
of talking about where these autonomic initiatives are moving
users. It will be critical, however, for them to continue to fill
in the blank spaces between now and their ultimate goal with useful
products," said John Humphreys, senior analyst at IDC.