Autonomic computing: the natural fusion of soft computing and hard computing

Autonomic computing is emerging as a significant new approach in the design of computing systems. Its overall goal is the creation self-managing systems. In order to achieve this, hard and soft computing is required. The benefits from utilizing soft computing include their ability to handle imprecision, uncertainty and partial truth that is inherently present in any complex real world problem accompanied by the practicable benefits of hard computing namely the stability of highly predictable solutions and typically low computational burden. This paper motivates the proposition that the successful creation of automatic systems requires a fusion of soft computing and hard computing.