Modern computing environments face both low-frequency infrastructural changes, such as software and hardware upgrades, and frequent changes, such as fluctuations in the network bandwidth and CPU load. However, existing operating systems are not designed to cope with rapidly changing environments. They provide no mechanism to permit the insertion of self-adapting components that can optimize system performance according to diversity, software and hardware changes, and variations in the environment. They are not designed to accommodate dynamic updates of software, or to deal with component interdependence.