Features:

THE INVISIBLE COMPUTER
By Alan Ganek, VP, Autonomic Computing, IBM Software Group

Technology is like a race car going 200 miles per hour on the fastest track on earth. Systems crash. People make mistakes. Computers need lots of maintenance to keep them up and running. That's life.

At the same time, consumers have become increasingly intolerant of computer failures while placing ever-greater demands on the technology they use.

The high-tech industry has spent decades creating systems of marvelous and ever-increasing complexity, but like Charlie Chaplin falling into the machine in “Modern Times” complexity itself is the problem.

Consider this fact: One third to one half of a company's total IT budget is spent preventing or recovering from crashes, according to a recent study by the University of California. And no wonder. A system failure at a financial firm or online retail store can run up millions of dollars in lost business.

And if you look at computer outages, about 40 percent are caused by operator error. That's not because operators aren't well trained or don't have the right capabilities. It's because the complexities of technology are difficult to figure out, and IT managers are under pressure to make decisions in seconds.

So we’re headed for a wall.

Businesses can't just roll in processors and storage fast enough to avoid meltdowns when usage spikes, or fend off viruses and hacker attacks, or manage the different operating systems that must plug in and access information: laptops, palmtops, desktops, whatever. People are good, but they're not that good.

Since no one is close to writing defect-free software or hardware, what we need are computers capable of running themselves and with far greater levels of intelligence built right into the technology itself.

And by "intelligence" I’m not talking about computers that can write the next Ninth Symphony. I’m talking about the same kind of intelligence we take for granted in our own bodies. We walk up three flights of stairs and our heart rate increases. It's hot, we perspire. It's cold, we shiver. We don't tell ourselves to do these things. They just happen. We need something similar for business.

If systems and networks could begin to adopt these attributes, managers would be able to set business goals, and computers would automatically set the IT actions needed to deliver them. For example, in a financial-trading environment, a manager might decide that trades have to be completed in less than a second to realize service and profitability goals. It would be up to software tools to configure the computer systems to meet those metrics.

The implications for this “autonomic” business approach are immediately evident: A network of organized, "smart" computing components that give us what we need, when we need it, without a conscious mental or even physical effort.

Here’s an example: A computer freezes-up intermittently, no customer transactions are being processed for several seconds, losing thousands of dollars in business and customer confidence and loyalty. Today, IT support staff might not even find out about the problem for more than a day; when they do, it takes a couple days to figure out what is happening.

With an autonomic system in place – with real-time monitoring and auto-tuning analysis -- the freeze-up is detected the first time it happens and matched against historical problem data. The settings are reset automatically, averting any real loss of revenue and customer loyalty. A report that the administrator reads the next day shows the action that was taken.

The good news is work is already being done to make this happen. Current research projects at labs and universities include self-evolving systems that can monitor themselves and adjust to changes and “cellular” chips capable of recovering from failure.

The goal is to increase the amount of automation businesses have. Because the more that you can get human error out of the loop, the more efficient your business will be -- whether you're a financial institution, a shipping company or an online retailer. The beauty of it is that all of the complexity gets hidden from the user.

The logic is compelling: relief from the headaches of technology ownership and maintenance; an improved balance sheet; and much greater flexibility in meeting the demands of running a business.

But in the end, perhaps the greatest benefit would be the freedom it would unlock. Sure, it will create enormous efficiencies. But the game-changing impact will be freeing up all companies -- whether just starting out or well established -- to experiment, be more creative, rethink assumptions and stretch the limits of progress as far as the mind can conjure.