Self-Management: The Solution to Complexity or Just Another Problem?

Traditionally, network and system management are manually controlled processes. It usually takes one or more human operators to manage all aspects of a dynamically evolving computing system. The operator is tightly integrated in this management process, and his or her tasks range from defining high-level policies to executing lowlevel system commands for immediate problem resolution. Although this form of humanin-the-loop management was appropriate in the past, it has become increasingly unsuitable for modern networked computing systems.