SymbioticSphere: a biologically-inspired network architecture for autonomic grid computing

Grid computing systems are expected to be more scalable, more survivable from partial systems failures and more adaptive to dynamic network environments in order to improve user experience, expand system's operational longevity and reduce maintenance cost. Based on the observation that many biological systems have already overcome these requirements, the proposed network architecture, called SymbioticSphere, applies biological concepts and mechanisms to design grid systems (application services and middleware platforms). In SymbioticSphere, each application service and middleware platform is designed as an artificial biological entity, analogous to an individual bee in a bee colony. Application services and middleware platforms implement biological concepts and mechanisms such as decentralization, energy level, healthy level, energy exchange between species, environment sensing, migration, replication and death. Like in biological systems, desirable system characteristics such as scalability, survivability and adaptability emerge from the collective actions and interactions of application services and middleware platforms. This paper presents the architectural design of SymbioticSphere, and describes how application services and middleware platforms act and interact with each other. Preliminary simulation results show that application services and middleware platforms collectively adapt to dynamic changes in the network (e.g. user location, network traffic and resource availability).