The information technology boom can only explode for so long before it collapses on itself in a jumble of wires, buttons and knobs. IBM recently called on all researchers and industry members to attack the growing problem of complexity in IT by building more self-managing systems, and in creating a holistic approach to simplification of all aspects of these systems. The goal is to reduce maintenance, improve availability and ease-of-use, and lower costs. The human body's self-regulating nervous system presents an excellent model for creating the next generation of computing, autonomic computing. Robert Morris, Director of IBM's Almaden research Center in San Jose, will describe the motivation for this effort and some of the projects and results being undertaken at IBM. To succeed, this vision of an IT infrastructure will require the participation of IT researchers and developers throughout industry, government and academia. To read more about autonomic computing, see http://www.research.ibm.com/autonomic/manifesto/
About the speaker:
Dr. Robert Morris is Director of IBM's Almaden Research Center, IBM's second largest research lab. The Almaden lab is focussed on a wide range of basic and applied research and was responsible for the development of the disk drive and the relational database. Today, research there spans from atoms to humans, i.e., from nanotechnology and individual atom manipulation, through hardware and system development and a large computer science lab, to human interface research. Robert has been the director there for two years, previously he was at IBM Watson Research center (responsible for advanced systems research, including personal systems, the Deep Blue chess project, etc). Before that he was a researcher in storage and data management at Almaden and, prior to 1991, at Bell Labs. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Member of IBM's Academy of Technology.
Contact information:
Robert Morris
IBM Almaden Research Center
650 Harry Rd, San Jose
CA 95120
408 927 2200
rjtm@us.ibm.com