Self-managing Internet Applications Flex Their Muscles

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Self-managing Internet Applications Flex Their Muscles

ScienceDaily (Oct. 15, 2009) — A European research project that incubates self-managing internet applications is paying off. It has inspired a Wikipedia that’s potentially able to handle more users than the original and super-efficient streaming video, with more to come.

The European research project SELFMAN ( http://www.ist-selfman.org/wiki/index.php/SELFMAN_Project ) has created a programming system that makes it much easier to build high-powered distributed internet applications that manage themselves.

Distributed applications tap the internet’s power by enabling hundreds, thousands, or even millions of devices and programs to link up and work together. These are the invisible programs that let users bank, buy and play games online, search for information, share files, and network with applications like Facebook and Twitter.

SELFMAN ensures that all those moving parts stay in touch, up-to-date, and work together smoothly without the teams of experts that have been needed to tweak, patch or protect the system as components come online or drop out, or in response to communication or component breakdowns, and even deliberate attacks.

“We want to make this kind of application easy, so people can really take advantage of this huge network of computers and small devices,” says Peter Van Roy SELFMAN’s coordinator based at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-La-Neuve in Belgium.

SELFMAN’s programming architecture and set of components have already sparked new applications that utilise and showcase its capabilities.

“It’s the first time that we’ve been able to get large internet applications with many computers talking together, when all the applications can take care of themselves,” says Van Roy. “Now we are taking this to the next level.”

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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091006104049.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091006104049.htm