An adaptive systems perspective on network calculus, with applications to autonomic control

Autonomic communications systems must demonstrate behaviour that remains correct under a range of environmental conditions. In order to gain confidence that a system will behave as intended, it is advantageous to have a formal description of the expected behaviour that can be analysed and tested for compliance with different stimuli. We present an adaptive systems perspective on a recently-proposed formal analytic model of network performance. We suggest how this can be used to study the adaptive behaviour of systems, and to ensure that their adaptations maintain desired properties.