An Organic Computing Perspective on Self-Improving System Interweaving at Runtime

The complexity of today's technical systems evolves over long periods of time. For example, systems may join or split, while subsystems may change their behaviour. We often observe that subsystems not intended to interact get coupled and influence each other. Apart from ICT-based coupling, as via the Internet, we also observe both direct and indirect interaction via the physical and social world as systems explicitly react to human behaviour and environmental conditions - and influence both through theiractions. Thus, any two (sub-)systems coming into contact with the same part of the environment or group of users can influence each other in ways that can hardly be anticipated at design-time. Undesired effects may be the consequence of unintended, implicit interaction of elements that were not fully predictable or relevant beforehand. The existence ofsuch effects is not a design decision, they are already present in the richness of our complex systems and components and their number is increasing. In previous work, we discussed some of the problems in continually integrating these complex systems, and in this paper, we dig deeper into both the challenges entailed in 'interwoven systems' and discuss some of the necessary aspects to developing architectures that will address these challenges.