Towards a Real-Time Reference Architecture for Autonomic Systems

Autonomic computing aims to embed automation in IT management software such that it can adapt to changes in the configuration, provisioning, protection, and resource utilization variations of the IT infrastructure at run time. It is, therefore, almost natural to consider this control software framework as being designed with control principles in mind. One of the research trends considers autonomic computing as a control system that resolves constraints related to the optimal usage of resources based on external requests made by users or processes in a reactive way. In this paper, a real-time reference architecture is introduced in which components implementing functions of realtime system elements or blocks such as transducers, controllers, and actuators are designed. The architecture of the autonomic computing software also contains components that implement functionalities specific to real-time systems. The transducers, controllers, and actuators are thus connected via realtime pattern components such as concurrency, priority, and reliability patterns.