Background
Current software engineering practice is a human-led search for solutions which meet needs and constraints under limited resources. Often there will be conflict, both between and within functional and non-functional criteria. Naturally, like other engineers, we search for a near optimal solution. As systems get bigger, more distributed, more dynamic and more critical, this labour-intensive search will hit fundamental limits. We will not be able to continue to develop, operate and maintain systems in the traditional way, without automating or partly automating the search for near optimal solutions. Automated search based solutions have a track record of success in other engineering disciplines, characterised by a large number of potential solutions, where there are many complex, competing and conflicting constraints and where construction of a perfect solution is either impossible or impractical.