IBM to unveil self-healing computer systems soon

International Business Machines Corp this week will unveil to its 500 largest customers plans to broaden its efforts to develop computer systems that not only manage but also fix themselves when they break. IBM said it is creating a separate division, which it calls Autonomic Computing, that will integrate its efforts to create computer systems that need less human intervention.

As part of the software division, the unit also will work on standardising those efforts to work with software programmes from other companies. IBM launched an autonomic computing initiative in its research division in the spring of 2001, aiming to bring some of the traditional characteristics of mainframe computing to other, less expensive systems. For instance, IBM said it includes autonomic capabilities in its Tivoli management software and DB2 database software and is adding the features to its ‘Shark’ storage system. This week, the heads of IBM’s computer, software and data storage businesses will discuss the plan when they meet with chief information officers for three days in Desert Springs, California.

With technology budgets expected to increase only a few percentage points in 2002 after having fallen in 2001, IBM said it aims to save customers money by decreasing the number of people needed to manage and fix complex computer systems.