Auto Immune Systems®

Market globalization has permanently changed today’s business world and - as a direct result - high-availability business processes are urgently required. Companies need to have a complete overview of all their business-relevant data at all times so that they can quickly react to customer requirements and market changes: they must act as a “Real-time Enterprise“.

Read more about this in our study "Real time Enterprises need Real time Infrastructures - How IT should support business goals", which also includes a Gartner Research report on this topic.

Register and view study

An important prerequisite is practically fault-free IT (real-time infrastructure). Today’s break/fix process, which requires a relatively high degree of personnel, can no longer meet these requirements as downtimes can always occur due to faults and security attacks (hackers, viruses etc.). New service measures do indeed reduce the number of faults requiring service personnel intervention but there is still a significant loss of availability.

As a leading international service provider, Fujitsu Siemens Computers has recognized that this problem requires a completely new view of service business - a paradigm change – moving towards Auto Immune Systems®!

The Solution

IT should work in the same way as water out of a tap or electricity from a socket: always available and without having to think about it. And that is exactly the basis for our solution Auto Immune Systems®, repair or recovery that is implemented quickly and automatically so that the user does not notice anything as his daily work is thus not affected.

The focus is not only on protecting each IT system but also on avoiding errors. It is almost like “forecasting the need for maintenance“. A constantly expanding learning knowledge database is in use which, in turn, is networked with other knowledge databases from various product manufacturers. The solutions are analyzed and then used to immunize the entire IT infrastructure. The consequences are significant. Such a fast and efficient elimination of an ever-decreasing number of faults results in less downtime and thus better IT availability levels.

The features which enable Auto Immune Systems® to handle faults with a minimum amount of reduced availability are known as “Pain-free Defect” and “Pain-free Immunization”.

Pain-free Defect

Auto Immune Systems® implements healing in a reliable way: it enables systems to help themselves. The basis for such self-help is created by classifying error messages and the appropriate reactions. In the event of a fault, the error messages are diagnosed and the result is compared with the knowledge in a learning database. This database contains proven strategies for eliminating all known faults. If a solution is thus found, it is immediately transferred to the local systems which then use the solution in a self-healing manner. As this entire process runs automatically, fault handling is thus only a few seconds instead of minutes or even hours.

If the database cannot offer a suitable solution, the problem is forwarded to 3rd-level support experts who look at the fault more closely and then solve it. The solution is entered in the database. As a result of this procedure and an additional feedback system which constantly assesses the quality of all solutions (“was the fault successfully eliminated?”), the knowledge database is continuously improved and always up-to-date with state-of-the-art technology

Pain-free Immunization

The aim of this process is to “foresee” possible errors and to avoid them by using proactive maintenance measures. The measures used to avoid or reduce the effects of the error are balanced against the actual benefit. For example, the immunization measure must not cause more costs (pain) than the illness (fault) itself. It should not result in new planned operation interruptions which will also increase the amount of downtime. If the analyses confirm that our solution has helped without any damaging side-effects, we can immunize the rest of the infrastructure automatically and without any risks.

This prophylaxis, consisting of the “learning” knowledge database in combination with a change process that does not affect the user’s daily work, is known by us as “painless immunization”.

Auto Immune Systems® - winner of the ”Fujitsu Siemens Computers Innovation Award 2006“

Specifications

	Auto Immune Systems® Flyer (PDF)
	Auto Immune Systems® white paper (PDF)