IBM announces new autonomic technologies

BANGALORE: Developed as collaboration between the IBM Research Division and Software Group, these new software technologies are built to work with the latest versions of the company's WebSphere Application Server Version 5 and DB2 Version 8.1 software products.

Together, the three technologies -- called "Adaptive Forecasting," "Rapid Reconfiguration" and "On-line Capacity Planning" -- can predict the progression of sudden increases in workload and bring on additional server capacity to handle the volume, then free up capacity as the demand dissipates.

These autonomic functions can help improve business efficiency by optimizing the use of existing IT resources and ensuring that response-times and service level targets are met, all with little or no human intervention.

These technologies also have the potential to be used with other third-party databases and application servers. IBM Global Services e-business Management Services offering is currently adapting these technologies to be included as part of its offerings.

"In an on demand world, where billions of devices and applications interact daily, enterprise leaders will need to be free to focus on managing the intricacies of business rather than the complexities of technology," said Frank Luksic, Country Executive, Software Group & Developer Relations, IBM India.

"IBM understands these issues and is delivering the technology that contributes to intelligent, open systems that can mask the complexity of IT systems."

By using sophisticated mathematical models and a novel model adaptation scheme, IBM's unique adaptive forecasting can anticipate the progression of an unexpected surge in demand. The online capacity planning technology provides estimates of the resources required to defend the customer service levels for the projected demand. It then allows a hot swap of resources from one workload to another with no noticeable interruption to the end user.