An artificial intelligence perspective on autonomic computing policies

We introduce a unified framework that interrelates three different types of policies that will be used in autonomic computing systems: Action, Goal, and Utility Function policies. Our policy framework is based on concepts from artificial intelligence such as states, actions, and rational agents. We show how the framework can be used to support the use of all three types of policies within a single autonomic component or system, and use the framework to discuss the relative merits of each type.