Complexity Reduction in Developing Autonomic Systems with ASSL

Autonomic computing promises overall IT complexity reduction by hiding system complexity and intricacy via systems capable of self-management. However, despite the fact that such systems reduce software maintenance costs and complexity, the autonomic computing approach does not provide any means for complexity reduction in autonomic system development. In this paper, we present our approach to reducing the complexity of developing autonomic systems with the Autonomic System Specification Language (ASSL). This paper reasons on the complexity-reduction factors employed by ASSL in terms of properly designed abstractions and a variety of complexity-reduction specification features.