Secured remote tracking of critical autonomic computing applications

Autonomic computing is an entirely new philosophy for the development of computing systems. It is emerging as a significant new approach to the design of computing systems. Its goal is the development of systems that are self-configuring, self-healing, self-protecting and self-optimizing. This makes autonomic computing the best candidate when designing critical applications, thus minimizing human intervention. But these applications need to be monitored, even if total maintenance is done by the system itself. Remotely tracking the performance of a system is necessary in the case of critical autonomic computing applications in order to spot any extraordinary behavior which may arise due to some error. However, the tracking system needs to be a part of the whole system and needs to be secure, as it is vulnerable to all kinds of security threats. The paper proposes to add security at the application layer to track remotely these critical applications. These security mechanisms secure the communication channel between the tracking system and the application, thus making it safe from all kinds of security threats. An example of a critical autonomic computing application, e-medicine, is also discussed, showing how the remote tracking system can help in monitoring the application, guaranteeing total security.