1. A method for autonomic system management, the method comprising: defining a system performance metric to evaluate a level of performance of an autonomic system based on the allocation of two or more system resources among a plurality of system resource demands; deriving, using the system performance metric a plurality of resource-specific expressions, each resource-specific expression capable of expressing changes in the level of performance of the system attributable to changes in the allocation of one of the system resources; identifying the resource-specific expression yielding the greatest change in the level of system performance at a given allocation of system resources; identifying a system resource associated with the identified resource-specific expression; modifying allocation of the identified associated system resource for at least one system resource demand to provide an increase in the level of performance of the autonomic system; and adjusting allocations of other system resources in accordance with the modified allocation of the identified associated system resource.