We believe that large scale biological systems, such as the bee or ant colony, have already developed many of the mechanisms needed to satisfy these requirements. We have identified several key principles and mechanisms in these biological systems, and we are now applying them to the design of network services and applications. Over millions of years of evolution, large scale biological systems, such as the bee or ant colony, have developed mechanisms that allow them to scale, adapt, and survive. Consider the bee colony. Bee colonies scale to a large number of bees because all activities of the hive are carried out without centralized control.
Bees act autonomously, influenced by local conditions and local interactions with other bees.
When building the hive, bees are guided only by the structure of the partially completed hexagonal cells around them. There is no master bee that controls the building of the hive. The bee colony also adapts to dynamic conditions, often to optimize its food gain relative to energy expenditure. When the amount of honey in the hive is low, a large number of food gathering bees leave the hive to gather nectar from the flowers in the area. When the hive is nearly full of honey, most bees remain in the hive and rest.