The collective: A common information service for self-managed middleware

As the deployment of self-managed reflective middleware platforms increases, the process of collecting and examining information used within the reflective process becomes ever more complex. The quality of such information is vital to ensure the successful outcome of the self-management process. However, the cost associated with the collection of this information plays a major role in influencing the success of a self-managed system.Within typical deployment environments it is not uncommon for multiple self-managed systems to be deployed, each collecting information for use within their respective reflective computations. In many cases, these systems will collect the same information, replicating the effort required to retrieve the information. Such replication could be avoided by sharing information between systems to reduce the overall cost of collection within the deployment environments.Current self-managed systems lack adequate support for information collection and sharing. This work proposes the use of an independent information service to assist in the collection and management of information within self-managed middleware systems.