Structural Reconfiguration: An Autonomic Strategy for GCM Components

Component models are becoming more and more popular in the design of autonomic applications. In autonomic component systems, we can consider each component as an autonomic element able to dynamically reconfigure itself (maintain equilibrium with the environment by reacting to its changes). As component applications are assemblies of structured pieces of code, a powerful dynamic reconfiguration strategy for such applications is structural reconfiguration (adding, removing components). In this paper, we rely on the grid component model (GCM) for programming autonomic and distributed applications. GCM components can be equipped with a very rich component-structured control part, i.e. the place where autonomic strategies are designed and implemented. Our aim is to demonstrate that GCM is suited to the development of autonomic systems, capable to maintain equilibrium with the environment by applying structural reconfiguration. We illustrate this by describing and analysing a complete example.