On The Horizon

This section of our site dedicated to information about new companies, and technology that is at the vanguard of innovation in its respective field. We hope that you will find learning about these companies as exciting as we do, and take away from this experience the knowledge that the world is advancing in ways never before imagined.

Tera has been buying technology companies for over 10 years, and we clearly see two kinds of innovation;

a. evolution and,

b. revolution.

Evolution, the more common kind, dramatically improves an existing technology,

Revolution, on the other hand, changes the playing field altogether.

We believe that the revolutionary element of one particular technology will not only change the way we use computers, but how we interact on a daily basis.

This month’s feature is Autonomic Computing.

"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them." - Alfred North Whitehead

For this month, Tera Capital is focusing on a company, Embotics, and its revolutionary technology, Autonomic Computing. To give you an idea of how Embotics Autonomic Computing works, here is a brief overview:

The next era of computing involves building computer systems that regulate themselves much in the same way our telephone system operates, or how our nervous system regulates and protects our body. This is the basis for Autonomic Computing.

Essentially, an Autonomic Computing system works by "knowing itself". Each component possesses a system identity, and since a system exists on many levels, an autonomic system gathers detailed knowledge of its individual components, current status, ultimate capacity, and all connections to other systems to govern it. It also knows the extent of its "owned" resources, those it can borrow or lend, and those that can be shared or should be isolated.

Furthermore, it can, in a sense, heal itself - by recovering from routine or random events that might cause some of its parts to malfunction and finding alternate ways of using resources or reconfiguring the system to keep functioning smoothly. When a computer is equipped with this technology, it is able to recognize imminent danger, steer clear of any potential destructive ramifications, and keep itself safe and running. This means that a system will never settle for the status quo – it always looks for ways for optimization.

The increasing complexity of current computing systems, combined with a continuing shortage of skilled I/T professionals, points to a need for automation and simplification of the end user’s experience. It’s still early, and Autonomic Computing will evolve with time but, at this point, we can clearly see its advantages.