IBM's dream: computer, heal thyself

The post of systems administrator could soon become little more than a memory as IBM unveils plans to create a highly evolved computer - a machine modelled on the human central nervous system to become the world's first self-healing computer.

IBM unveiled its vision of the future, entitled "Autonomic Computing", a call for researchers and developers worldwide to create a computer system that will make the problems and the complexities of IT systems a thing of the past.

Autonomic computing will see most systems maintaining higher levels of automation by working in a similar way to a human's central nervous system, which takes care of the basic maintenance of the human body, such as breathing, digestion and heart rate.

Similarly computers will evolve to become automatically configured for example a machine that will correct any human errors made during programming.

Mandy Chessell, master innovator at IBM, said: "Our aim is to create computer systems and software which can respond to the digital environment so systems can adapt and even heal themselves which will result in less work for humans and the IT departments. We will aim to develop our hardware and software with built-in autonomy," she said.

IBM compared the mechanisms of an autonomic computer with the human brain. For instance, if a child burns his hand, his brain automatically sends a message to the hand to pull it away. Similarly, a computer will be able to self-diagnose any fault in the network automatically.

IBM's concept of autonomy consists of many different components, such as the pervasive computing model which sees high-speed access anywhere at anytime and grid computing, which aims to treat computing power like an electrical utility network and involves sharing huge database files and programs across network connections.

Dr Daron G Green, EMEA manager of Grid technologies, gave a more practical example of autonomic computing:

"Presently computers come with manuals to describe how to configure the system, creating a certain mindset for the IT worker. One of our first aims is to try to build computers that can configure themselves without human intervention," he said.

For more rock solid predictions for the future, check out silicon.com's new hot topic, Beyond the Processor at http://www.silicon.com/btp