Evolutionary and embryogenic approaches to autonomic systems

In this paper we present a review of state-of-the-art techniques for automated creation and evolution of software. The focus is on bio-inspired bottom-up approaches, in which complexity is grown from interactions among simpler units. First, we review Evolutionary Computation (EC) techniques, highlighting their potential application to the automated optimization of computer programs in an online, dynamic environment. Then, we survey approaches inspired by embryology, in which artificial entities undergo a developmental process. We introduce the concept of EmbryoWare to refer to software that can be modified via an embryogenic process. We refer to Evolutionary Developmental Computation as the combined evo-devo approach in software, and describe its constituent elements. The paper concludes with a short discussion and outlook for applications of the aforementioned techniques to autonomic computing and communication systems. ∗This work has been partially funded by the European Commission within the framework of the BIONETS project EUIST-FET-SAC-FP6-027748, www.bionets.eu. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Inter-Perf, October 24, 2008, Athens, GREECE. Copyright 2008 ICST ISBN # 978-963-9799-31-8 .