SEARCHING FOR INSPIRATION in shaping the next computing architecture for IT, IBM Research apparently is looking inward -- literally. Taking a cue from the human body's autonomic nervous system, Big Blue has a vision of piecing together an autonomic computing network from across its far-flung development labs. As is the nervous system, the design of this new computing context will be flexible. It will respond to unpredictable events in intelligent ways, will be self-managing and self-healing by automatically correcting problems or fetching resources that can, and it will be always accessible so that a company's customers, partners, and suppliers can get to it easily.

"Building an autonomic computing network is not optional; in fact, the future of the Internet and e-business depends on it," says Paul Horn, the director of IBM Research and caretaker of the company's autonomic vision. At the heart of this design is intelligent middleware that functions autonomically, according to Horn. He contends that a truly autonomic computing network will be an aggregation of autonomic networks, with that aggregation being completely transparent to users. "This must be an entirely heterogeneous environment, [one that is] platform agnostic, and one [that is] dependent on open standards. And middleware must support all modes of access to it, be they cell phones, kiosks, Web-connected appliances, embedded devices, or even PCs," Horn says.

If this intelligent middleware layer can be built, then IBM can deliver on its ultimate promise of autonomic computing, which is "e-sourcing," or the ability to purchase IT services in a "utilitylike manner," Horn says. Horn contends that in the future servers that make up this system will be more cellular and distributed, much like the human nervous system. That means we'll have systems and networks of single-chip cells that integrate processors, memory, and communications. These cellular architectures will make it practical to allow the computer to get its power out to where the data is, thereby eliminating some of the latency characteristics of current architectures.

IBM Research is currently working on software to exploit such an architecture. Horn describes one project, called Oceano, as a "scalable infrastructure for large-scale utility," that allows for multicustomer hosting on a collection of virtualized hardware. Via Oceano a group of servers can be automated to handle the IT needs of many users, including on-the-fly changes in the load requirements. Paul Horn sat down with InfoWorld Editor at Large Ed Scannell to discuss Oceano and a number of other topics.

InfoWorld: IBM Research has a vision of the future wrapped around this idea of autonomic computing. What is autonomic computing?

Horn: The body's autonomic nervous system does things like change your heart rate and breathing, which allows humans to physically adapt to any number of situations. This is

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