Enabling Autonomic , Self-managing Grid Applications

The emergence of pervasive wide-area distributed computing environments, such as pervasive information systems and computational Grid, has enabled a new generation of applications that are based on seamless access, aggregation and interaction. For example, it is possible to conceive a new generation of scientific and engineering simulations of complex physical phenomena that symbiotically and opportunistically combine computations, experiments, observations, and real-time data, and can provide important insights into complex systems such as interacting black holes and neutron stars, formations of galaxies, and subsurface flows in oil reservoirs and aquifers etc. Other examples include pervasive applications that leverage the pervasive information Grid to continuously manage, adapt, and optimize our living context , crisis management applications that use pervasive conventional and unconventional information for crisis prevention and response, medical applications that use in-vivo and in-vitro sensors and actuators for patient management, and business applications that use anytime-anywhere information access to optimize profits. However, the underlying Grid computing environment is inherently large, complex, heterogeneous and dynamic, globally aggregating large numbers of independent computing and communication resources, data stores and sensor networks. Furthermore, these emerging applications are similarly complex and highly dynamic in their behaviors and interactions. Together, these characteristics result in application development, configuration and management complexities that break current paradigms based on passive components and static compositions. Clearly, there is a need for a fundamental change in how these applications are developed and managed. This has led researchers to consider alternative programming paradigms and management