Experience Implementing an IP Address Closure

Most autonomic systems require large amounts of human labor and configuration before they become autonomous. We study the management problem for autonomic systems, and consider the actions needed before a system becomes self-managing, as well as the tasks a system administrator must still perform to keep so-called ``self-managing systems'' operating properly. To understand the problem, we implemented a prototype self-managing ``IP address closure'' that implements integrated DNS and DHCP. We conclude that the system administrator is far from obsolete, but that the administrator of the future will have a different skill set than those of the present, focused around effective interaction with closures rather than management of individual machines.