Autonomic economics

Autonomic systems take decisions independent of human administrators and hide much system complexity when they do signal for intervention. Furthermore, they are expected to interact with their environment in an autonomous way, even beyond the boundaries of an individual organization. Autonomic systems will offer their capabilities as services partially based on service elements they acquire from their environment. In a commercial environment autonomic decisions, e.g. (re-)configuration, healing and anticipation will not be taken "at any cost". Financial factors will be combined with technical feasibility to obtain optimal outcomes. In effect, the maximum financial value of a system will be the result of an optimal operating policy and vice-versa. We use the term Autonomic Economics to describe this association between system design and economic efficiency. Here we interpret the Autonomic Manifesto (IBM, 2003) from an economic point of view demonstrating how financial criteria complement and enrich other technical aspects of autonomic systems. We further argue that the inclusion of economic criteria in the autonomic decision process will not only support self-management but also facilitate the communication of decisions and their trade-offs between the system and the administrator.