Meta-adaptation in autonomic systems

Autonomic computing aims to make self-healing, self-tuning, self-configuring and self-protecting systems a reality. This self-adaptive behaviour is achieved by carrying out changes upon a system when particular constraints or requirements are not met. Existing work focuses on how to determine when a change is necessary and what that change will be. We argue that the mechanism used to carry out the change is equally important and can determine if the change heals, tunes or protects the system as it was intended to. We present OpenRec, a framework which facilitates autonomic computing where the change mechanism is also self-adapting. Novel features of our work include a clean separation of concerns in the self-adaption process, support for an extensible set of change mechanisms and the use of an evolving knowledge base which guides the change process.