Abstraction, decomposition/composition, modularity, and hierarchy are important principles of effective and efficient system design, but their application to new, more complex, and distributed applications is challenging. Using these principles, this paper describes a proposed design method for a class of control systems, called autonomic management systems (AMS)-defined as software that monitors the dynamics of physical or virtual entities and makes decisions to ensure required performance. Typically, an AMS is designed as a composition of individual manager/director modules, each addressing a particular aspect, for example, node failure, resource allocation, or mode change. This paper addresses the challenge of coordination and consistency of decisions and actions of multiple composed managers.
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