Toward a new landscape of systems management in an autonomic computing environment

In this paper we present IBM Tivoli Monitoring, a systems management application that displays autonomic behavior at run time, and we focus on extending it in order to encompass the design and the deployment phases of the product life cycle. We review the resource model concept, illustrate it with an example, and discuss its role throughout the product life cycle. Then we introduce basic concepts in ontology and description logics and discuss representing Common Information Model constructs using description logics. Finally, we propose Systems Management Ontology, an approach to enhancing the autonomic properties of IBM Tivoli Monitoring based on an ontology service and the technique of “contextual pulling” applied to the resource model.