Design and Evaluation of a Multiagent Autonomic Information System

The goal of an autonomic system is to self-manage itself and adjust its actions in the face of environmental changes. In this paper, we adopt a multiagent approach to developing an autonomic information system. The aim of this autonomic information system (AIS) is to provide an information system that can adjust its processing algorithms and/or information sources to provide required information at various levels of efficiency and effectiveness. Our approach to developing autonomic multiagent systems is based on the organization model for adaptive computational systems. We describe the design of one particular autonomic system, the AIS, and illustrate how this system fulfills certain desired autonomic properties. We also evaluate the performance of our autonomic system by comparing it to a non- autonomic system.