ВУЗ:
Составители:
Рубрика:
77
The company is backing its initiative with its own research program, a series
of grants to universities and efforts to make other computer companies sign up.
This week IBM is sending 75,000 copies of a manifesto written by Paul Horn,
senior vice president of IBM Research, that details the aims of its Autonomic
Computing initiative.
Mr Horn warns that humans are losing the battle to manage the increasing
complexity of computer systems and networks.
This complexity is only going to increase as computer technology shrinks
and finds its way into ever more devices.
If the current rates of the expansion of digital technology are maintained, soon
there would not be enough people to keep the world's computer systems running,
he said.
He called finding ways of handling this complexity the next "grand challenge"
facing the technology industry.
In the manifesto he said: "The growing complexity of the [technology]
infrastructure threatens to undermine the very benefits information technology
aims to provide."
Ideally future networks should resemble the autonomic nervous system
which maintains and monitors many basic bodily functions without conscious help.
The autonomic nervous system maintains blood sugar and oxygen levels
and monitors temperature. It adjusts the body's heating and cooling systems to
keep body temperature hovering around 37C.
What is needed, argued Mr. Horn, are computer systems that do a much
better job of configuring themselves, can work around disruptions, heal any
damage they suffer or fight off potential problems.
IBM is planning its own research programs to create technologies that can
turn relatively dumb networks into smarter alternatives. It is also planning to spend
millions over the next five years funding 50 research projects at universities to
take on the complex challenge.
The likely outcome of the project is a series of software standards that define
how to build software or hardware that has these more biological properties.
IBM is working closely with the Global Grid Forum. This industry body is
driving efforts to turn the disparate computing and research capabilities of the
world's science labs into a shared pool of resources that anyone can plug into.
This effort is already driving the creation of software that hides the individual
quirks of individual machines and instruments behind common interfaces.
(Story from BBC NEWS:)
4 Read the article again and fill in the chart. Speak about the new
technology.
What
principles is
this
technology
based on?
Who is
working out
this
technology?
What is the
prerequisite
for creating
such a
technology?
What are the
results of the
technology
development?
What future
could you
predict for this
technology?
Страницы
- « первая
- ‹ предыдущая
- …
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- …
- следующая ›
- последняя »
