Open issues in self-inspection and self-decision mechanisms for supporting complex and heterogeneous information systems

Self-* properties seem an inevitable mean to manage the increasing complexity of networked information systems. The implementation of these properties imply sophisticated software and decision supports. Most research results have focused on the former aspects with many proposals of passing from traditional to reflective middleware. In this paper we focus instead on the supports to the run-time decisions that any self-* software should take, independently of the underlying software used to achieve some self-properties. We evidence the problems of self-inspection and self-decision models and mechanisms that have to operate in real-time and in extremely heterogeneous environments. Without an adequate solution to these inspection and decision problems, self-* systems have no chance of real applicability to complex and heterogeneous information systems.