Service-oriented architecture has emerged as the most significant shift in how business applications are designed, developed and implemented in the last decade. Gartner predicts that SOA will provide the basis for 80 percent of new development projects by the year 2008. SOA provides a flexible, robust infrastructure to model, assemble, deploy and manage business processes for on demand business environments.

In this session, we'll examine how Autonomic Computing supports, complements and exploits service oriented architectures by enabling the flexible self-managing IT infrastructure that SOA demands. In many IT environments today, as much as 70 % of the budgets are dedicated to IT infrastructures which include servers, OS, storage and networking, as well as infrastructure management.

We'll begin this discussion with a brief introduction to autonomic computing, its evolution and reference architecture as well as associated architectural patterns. We'll conclude with several use cases which provide for an examination of ITIL-aligned process flows in support of IT systems management and the challenges presented by SOA environments.

The emergence of agent-based platforms and the implementation of agent-based solutions in the industry area are the first step towards the industrialization of agent technology. Mihai will present the STMicroelectronics case study of an adaptive staffing solution.

The semiconductor giant STMicroelectronics faces big pressure from its Asian competitors. To stay ahead of competition it needs to seize every opportunity and constantly adapt to new customer demands:

• variable production loads (prototypes, small, medium and big series)
• different levels of priority (low, medium and high priority clients)
• tight deadlines
• lower time to market for new products

Production resources management becomes critical and requires faster, more accurate and more flexible decision making. STMicroelectronics relied on high skilled managers to handle exceptions in the operator schedule management process. The problem was so complex (9 workshops, 1200 operators, 17 different functions, 600 equipments) that managers spent most of their time manually assigning the right operator to the right machine and forecasting operator training programs.

STMicroelectronics chose an adaptive, agent based solution for automating these tasks. The solution provided higher productivity (+3%), better resource allocations (6 month visibility; adaptive operator scheduling) and spare time for managers to focus on higher value added activities (5 full time managers changed positions).

We are no longer in the era of mainframe computing, when both companies and applications were typically command-and-control oriented and organized in vertical silos. With the combination of the Internet, fiber optics, and PCs, the business and technology playing field has been flattened. No longer primarily top down, it has changed to more side by side­as individuals, small groups, and organizations interact around the world. As a result, organizations are now demanding and cultivating new business practices that encourage less command and control and more horizontal connecting, collaborating, and competing.

This presentation discuss this new era and argues that agent technology is one of the primary enablers necessary to support it. Agent technology is now necessary to reduce costs, to improve efficiency and effectiveness, and to support the requirements of individuals, groups, companies, and universities as they collaborate globally. More importantly, it will enable us to create and support a whole class of IT applications and approaches that we could not previously have developed. In fact, without agent technology, our current technology will not scale to support the ever-increasing global interaction.

Ingenious technology can have a high curiosity value - but this is not why The Open Group is providing a forum for discussion of Adaptive Business Solutions. It is the business value that provides the justification, and The Open Group's contribution is to connect the business and technological communities so that that value can be realized. Chris will describe The Open Group's vision for the Adaptive Business Solutions Work Group, and the possibilities that The Open Group sees for its development.