An architecture with planning for autonomic systems

Autonomic systems aim to reduce the configuration, operational, and maintenance tasks of large distributed applications. In order to implement autonomic systems, several approaches, such as Self-managed system and Autonomic Computing, have been proposed. This paper describes an architectural approach for autonomic systems, which is based on a three-layered model. In the uppermost layer, the planning function, which is an important part of this model, has to efficiently make an effective sequence of operational services to satisfy goals. In this paper, we propose an automated planning algorithm using hierarchy planning technique. Our planner composes the sequence of operational services in the most abstract space, and then it successively embodies the detail of them. The critical values, which determine the abstract space, are automatically discovered from the knowledge of operational services. We also present the experimental results to show the effectiveness of our method.