A Mass Storage System Administrator Autonomic Assistant

The growing complexity of mass storage systems at major data centers is causing stress on system administrators to keep performance at optimal levels. As storage requirements grow, so does the number of routine tasks that the administrator must perform, as well as the time it takes for these to be executed. The solution being proposed to ease this burden is the Mass Storage System Administrator Autonomic Assistant (MSSAAA). The MSSAAA is a collection of agents that perform some of the more common tasks while the administrators handle higher-level issues. Using the principles of autonomic computing, the MSSAAA is governed by a centralized set of policies that the administrator will review on a regular basis and can adjust as necessary.

The goal is to use an autonomic assistant to substantially reduce the amount of time it takes to address specific problems in the system. The process of analyzing the amount of time saved will involve recording information on the types of errors occurring and consulting in detail with the responsible system administrators. The mechanisms suggested by the system administrators will produce an assistant that handles these tasks effectively. The results will show how efficiently and effectively the MSSAAA handled its assigned tasks, and how it has eased the daily burden of system administrators at a major high performance computing center.