Towards autonomic computing: effective event management

Autonomic computing is emerging as a significant new approach for the design of computing systems. Its goal is the production of systems that are self-managing, self-healing, self-protecting and self-optimizing. Achieving this goal involve techniques from both software engineering and artificial intelligence. We discuss one particular aspect of autonomic computing: event management. It considers the range of event handling techniques in use, particularly in relation to distributed systems. Intelligent approaches are illustrated using the example of event handling in telecommunication systems. In particular, the telecom survivable network architecture is analyzed to identify lessons and potential pitfalls for autonomic computing.