Table 18.1 compares the four states of autonomic computing with how we manage today and what it will be like with full autonomic systems.
| Concept | Current Computing | Autonomic Computing |
| Self-configuration | Corporate data centers have multiple vendors and platforms. Installing, configuring, and integrating systems is time-consuming and error prone | Automated configuration of components and systems follows high-level policies. Rest of system adjusts automatically and seamlessly |
| Self-optimization | Systems have hundreds of manually set nonlinear tuning parameters, and their number increases with each release | Components and systems continually seek opportunities to improve their own performance and efficiency |
| Self-healing | Problem determination in large, complex systems can take a team of programmers weeks | System automatically detects, diagnoses, and repairs localized software and hardware problems |
| Self-protections | Detection of and recovery from attacks and cascading failures is manual | System automatically defends against malicious attacks or cascading failures. It uses early warning to anticipate and prevent systemwide failures |