iSeries’ shades of autonomic computing

iSeries already has some key pieces of IBM’s autonomic computing vision under its hood, including several self-configuring, self-healing, self-protecting, and self-optimizing technologies.

Autonomic computing builds support into systems so a platform can manage itself, reducing administrative requirements. Fully implemented autonomic functionality may still be in the works for many platforms, but iSeries users get some autonomic benefits right away.

Self-configuring technologies allow a server to define itself dynamically based on events, time, or workload. One of iSeries’ most visible self-configuring features is its capacity-on-demand capability. For example, an iSeries shop might specify that a certain amount of system resources — such as CPUs — be made available during times of typical processing. When servers experience peak usage, additional server resources are activated on the fly to process the heavier workload. When completed, additional server resources are moved back into reserve.

iSeries’ capacity-on-demand can be specified manually or with a scheduler entry. By next year the server will be able to process these on/off capacity demands dynamically.

Self-healing servers contain technologies that allow a failing component to be taken offline for recovery without interrupting business operations. iSeries’ processors and memory are dynamically taken offline when errors are detected; remaining resources continue to execute workload while failing parts are replaced. On the software side, iSeries provides threshold notification of soft errors, giving administrators a chance to implement a fix before it becomes a hard error.

iSeries has built-in support for Kerberos authentication for self-protection, and IBM provides built-in SSL and digital certificate support, VPN capabilities, and LDAP services. iSeries’ hardware encryption support allows shops to meet security compliance regulations while also speeding encryption operations.

A bevy of built-in self-optimizing capabilities helps shops get the most out of iSeries. For example, the iSeries Performance Advisor monitors performance metrics and provides tuning proposals to increase server run-time efficiency. Available-capacity planning tools analyze performance data with estimations of workload growth. iSeries automatically spreads data across disk storage to better performance while supporting dynamic archival and retrieval of objects based on their usage to improve throughput.