An autonomic system is self-managing, meaning that it is self-protecting, self-configuring, self-healing and self-optimizing.
Self-healing is concerned with ensuring effective recovery when a fault occurs. This means successfully identifying the fault and then, where possible, repairing
it. Also, there should be minimal disruption to users, avoiding loss of data and significant delays in processing.
Self-optimization means that a system is aware of its ideal performance, can measure its current performance against that ideal and has strategies for attempting improvements.