Preliminary Results of a Survey on the Use of Self-Adaptation in Industry

Abstract

Self-adaptation equips a software system with a feedback loop that automates tasks that otherwise need to be performed by operators. Such feedback loops have found their way to a variety of practical applications, one typical example is an elastic cloud. Yet, the state of the practice in self-adaptation is currently not clear. To get insights into the use of self-adaptation in practice, we are running a large-scale survey with industry. This paper reports preliminary results based on survey data that we obtained from 113 practitioners spread over 16 countries, 62 of them work with concrete self-adaptive systems. We highlight the main insights obtained so far: motivations for self-adaptation, concrete use cases, and difficulties encountered when applying self-adaptation in practice. We conclude the paper with outlining our plans for the remainder of the study.