As the computer industry steadily advances, so too does the technology which supports the highly complex hardware and software upon which the industry is founded. IBM senior vice president Paul M. Horn, who oversees the company's research labs will be distributing 75,000 copies of the 39-page paper he wrote addressing the growing complexity problem in the computer industry.
His paper, which addresses what he calls the ?next grand challenge," will be distributed at the Agenda conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. Horn highlights his concerns that, "we have a growing crisis on our hands."
The paper will be sent out to computer science researchers in universities, national labs and private sector companies across the globe. IBM has also announced that it will pledge millions of dollars to 50 research projects at collages throughout the next three to five years to take on the complexity challenge.
The complexity problem has been plaguing computer engineers and scientists for nearly three decades, ever since IBM released its 360 mainframe in 1964, and brought computers into the mainstream business and government world. Hardware advances usually proceed software and this causes large problems in the struggle for software to keep up.
As faster and more complex hardware is developed software engineers are pushed to write programs to take advantage of the system's capabilities. Hardware has become incredibly complex as well. New microprocessors now contain billions of transistors in the space of a postage stamp. It is almost impossible for any one person to comprehend the intricate architecture of the entire computer chip at once, therefore, processors are now designed by teams of several hundred people.
Frederick P. Brooks Jr., one of the architects of the IBM 360 said, "Complexity is the business we are in, and complexity is what limits us."
The complexity problem even attracted the attention of NATO, which sponsored a conference centered around concerns dealing with the "software crisis," and its effect on the economic health and military preparedness of the West.
Horn's paper highlights the many problems associated with the complexity issue but also suggests a plan for solving the problem. When Horn calls, "autonomic computing," is essentially a biological way of dealing with the growing complexity of computers, through a higher level of automation.
Horn likens it to the human body, which is able to do many of the basic functions, like heartbeat, breathing and digestion in response to changing conditions without conscience thought.
The human body "does all this without any conscious recognition or effort on your part," he writes. "This allows you to think about what you want to do and not how you'll do it: you can make a mad dash for the train without having to calculate how much faster to breathe and pump your heart."
Horn suggests that a computer should be able to handle similar basic tasks automatically as well. He proposes the development of systems and software that can automatically respond to changes in their environment and can adapt to these changes to protect and heal themselves.
Horn believes that automated systems are the key to the complexity problem because be sees human maintenance, in the form of fixing and debugging, as the bottleneck to the industry's advancement.
Addressing the support network of people designated to maintain computer systems Horn says, "They're all managing the complexity we've created in the information technology industry. The only way to get efficiency gains in information technology is to take some of the people out."
The technology support industry is growing rapidly because of a huge demand for qualified people to maintain the ever expanding networks. Horn points to the annual growth of 15,000 employees in the computer service industry as a sign of the complexity problem. The industry is expected to grow by over 100 percent over the next six years.
"There just aren't enough skilled people," Horn said. "If we don't do something, we'll be a services industry, and the industry won't grow. We're already headed in that direction."
Horn asserts that the problem can only be solved through cooperation between the computer companies. He believes that these companies should focus on topics such as adaptive algorithms for software agents, self-healing server computers, artificial intelligence and control theory, all of which IBM has research underway.
"We're certainly trying to push academic research in this direction," Horn said, "because we think it's an important direction.
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