Towards an Autonomic Distributed Computing System

Increasing hardware performance of desktop computersaccounts for a low-cost computing potential that is waitingto be efficiently used. However, the complexity of installationand maintenance of a large number of distributed heterogeneouscomputers is limiting the use of such systemson a large scale. Systems which are autonomic, capableof managing themselves are required. The architecture ofQADPZ (Quite Advanced Distributed Parallel Zystem), anopen source system for heterogeneous distributed computingis presented. The system allows the management anduse of the computational power of idle computers from anetwork of PCs. Different autonomic computing features ofthe system are described, together with possible extensionsof the system towards an autonomic distributed computingsystem.