146 Introduction to the New Mainframe: Large-Scale Commercial Computing
8.1 Introduction
Technology has permeated so many aspects of our lives today that it is almost
expected. Because technology appears in even the simplest tasks, it seems
routine. However, along with the evolution of a larger technical infrastructure
comes the task of maintaining and managing it.
The very technology that makes our life easier—it automates a set of business
processes and integrates applications and data across an enterprise—should be
“smart” enough to manage itself. And this principle is the basis upon which
autonomic computing is built.
The term “autonomic” comes from an analogy to the autonomic central nervous
system in the human body, which adjusts to m ...