A Tripartite Analytic Framework for Characterising Awareness and Self-Awareness in Autonomic Systems Research

Autonomic systems exhibiting self-* propertiesare composed of inter-connected computational elements withincreasingly sophisticated instrumentation for perception of theenvironment in which they are embedded. In realising theseself-* properties, satisfying functional requirements, or meetingperformance metrics, these components need to have, and areoften said to display, some form of ‘awareness’ and/or ‘selfawareness’.Rather than giving a specific definition of theseterms, in this paper we propose instead a tripartite analyticframework to characterise and categorise forms of awarenessand self-awareness in autonomic systems research. The threeaspects are the level of ‘awareness’ being addressed, the fieldof computer science in which the system has been developed,and the research themes being addressed. By applying theanalytic framework to the articles in the online AwarenessMagazine, and the collected opinions from the AwarenessResearch Agenda, we aim to promote knowledge transfer andscientific dialogue across research communities and disciplines,and promote a common agenda for awareness research.