Human experts in specific IT infrastructure and business domains possess substantial knowledge about prevention, remediation, and optimization of systems. However, there is a significant challenge in capturing, combining, and leveraging this siloed knowledge across domains.
 
SAF is a catalog-based XML collaborative knowledge framework that is designed to address these challenges by automating appropriate responses to changing business conditions and integrating contributions from diverse domains to provide competitive advantage. SAF has applicability in IT and business including cloud computing, service management, governance, security, energy, eGov, financial, emergency management, healthcare, and communications.
 
Cloud computing, in particular, exacerbates the separation between consumer-based business requirements and provider-supplied IT responses. SAF facilitates knowledge sharing across these domains, allowing consumer and provider to work cooperatively together to ensure adequate capacity, maximize quality of service, and reduce cost. The SAF technical committee considers cloud computing to be an area where the value of existing and developing standards could be significantly enhanced using SAF.
 
For more information on SAF, see the TC Charter, the FAQ, and the (working) Symptoms Automation Framework Documents.