An autonomic system is self-managing, meaning that it is self-protecting, self-configuring, self-healing and self-optimizing.
Self-protecting system will defend itself from accidental or malicious external attack. This means being aware of potential threats and having ways of handling those threats.
self-configuring is a system’s ability to readjust itself automatically to changing circumstances. This may simply be in support of ongoing development or to assist in self-healing, self-optimization or self-protection.
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 is aware of its ideal performance - can measure its current performance against that ideal - has strategies for attempting improvements