Research challenges of autonomic computing

Autonomic computing is a grand-challenge vision in which computing systems manage themselves in accordance with high-level objectives specified by humans. The IT industry recognizes that meeting this challenge is imperative; otherwise, IT systems will soon become virtually impossible to administer. But meeting this challenge is also extremely difficult, and requires a worldwide collaboration among the best minds of academia and industry. In the hope of motivating researchers in relevant areas to apply their expertise to this vitally important problem, the author outlines some of the main scientific and engineering challenges that collectively make up the grand challenge of autonomic computing, and provide pointers to initial efforts to address these challenges.