Aaron Brown, David Oppenheimer, Kim Keeton, Randi Thomas, John Kubiatowicz, and David A. Patterson. "ISTORE: Introspective Storage for Data-Intensive Network Services." Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems (HotOS-VII), Rio Rico, Arizona, March 1999.
(pdf, compressed postscript)

Abstract:

Todays fast-growing data-intensive network services place heavy demands on the backend servers that support them. This paper introduces ISTORE, a novel server architecture that couples LEGO-like plug-and-play hardware with a generic framework for constructing adaptive software that leverages continuous self-monitoring. ISTORE exploits introspection to provide high availability, performance, and scalability while drastically reducing the cost and complexity of administration. An ISTORE-based server monitors and adapts to changes in the imposed workload and to unexpected system events such as hardware failure. This adaptability is enabled by a combination of intelligent self-monitoring hardware components and an extensible software framework that allows the target application to specify monitoring and adaptation policies to the system. with the entrepreneurial nature of the Internet, in which widely utilized, large-scale network services may be operated by single individuals or small companies.