definitions as well as the means to implement them. In metaphor, security parallels the complex mechanisms underlying social interactions, defining friends, foes, mates and allies and offering access to limited resources on the basis of assessed benefit. Several key means are employed by security – they include the well-known 3 As of authentication, authorization, and access (control). The basis for applying these means requires the definition of roles and their relationships to resources, processes and each other. High-level concepts like privacy, anonymity and verification are likely imbedded in the form of the role definitions and derive from policy. Successful security reliably supports and enforces roles and relationships. Autodefense has a close association with security – maintaining the assigned roles in balance with performance exposes the system to potential violations in security. In those cases, the system must compensate by making changes that may sacrifice balance on a temporary basis and indeed may violate the operational terms of security itself. Typically the two are viewed as inextricably intertwined – effective security somewhat hopefully negating any need for a defensive response. Security’s revised role is to mediate between the competing demands from policy for maximized performance and minimized risk with auto defense recovering the balance when inevitable risk translates to threat. Federation represents one of the key challenges to be solved by effective security. The security sub-system interoperates directly with: policy management - receiving high-level directives related to access and priority configuration management - sending specifics for access and admission control autodefense - receiving over-riding directives under threat and sending security constraint details for risk assessment Connection fabric The connection fabric supports the interaction with all the elements and sub-systems of the autonomic system. It may be composed of a variety of means and mechanisms, or may be a single central framework. The biological equivalent is the central nervous system itself – although referred to as the autonomic system, it actually is only the communication conduit between the human body’s faculties. Principles of autonomic networking Consequently, it is currently under research by many research projects, how principles and paradigms of mother nature might be applied to networking. Compartmentalization Instead of a layering approach, autonomic networking targets a more flexible structure termed compartmentalization. Function re-composition The goal is to produce an architectural design that enables flexible, dynamic, and fully autonomic formation of large-scale networks in which the functionalities of each constituent network node