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First International Conference on Autonomic Computing (ICAC'04)   pp. 70-77
Utility Functions in Autonomic Systems
William E. Walsh, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Gerald Tesauro, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Jeffrey O. Kephart, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Rajarshi Das, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

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DOI Bookmark: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/ICAC.2004.68
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Abstract
Utility functions provide a natural and advantageous framework for achieving self-optimization in distributed autonomic computing systems. We present a distributed architecture, implemented in a realistic prototype data center, that demonstrates how utility functions can enable a collection of autonomic elements to continually optimize the use of computational resources in a dynamic, heterogeneous environment. Broadly, the architecture is a two-level structure of independent autonomic elements that supports flexibility, modularity, and self-management. Individual autonomic elements manage application resource usage to optimize local service-level utility functions, and a global Arbiter allocates resources among application environments based on resource-level utility functions obtained from the managers of the applications. We present empirical data that demonstrate the effectiveness of our utility function scheme in handling realistic, fluctuating Web-based transactional workloads running on a Linux cluster.
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Citation:  William E. Walsh, Gerald Tesauro, Jeffrey O. Kephart, Rajarshi Das, "Utility Functions in Autonomic Systems," icac, pp. 70-77,  First International Conference on Autonomic Computing (ICAC'04),  2004