The Conflict between Self-* Capabilities and Predictability

Although it would be desirable for any system to have self-* capabilities when faced with changes that might occur either in the system or its environment, there is a certain classes of systems in which the incorporation of such capabilities would be difficult to justify. These systems are mainly those that uncertainties in their behaviours are not desirable. In this paper, we discuss how the expected degree of autonomy of a system is related to the way in which a system is described, either process or data. The discussion is presented in the context of predictability. The type of system being considered are mission-critical system that are likely to restrict the degree of uncertainty associated with their behaviour, or the infrastructure that enables this behaviour.