Technology Neutral Principles and Concepts for Autonomic Networking Sven van der Meer, Joel Fleck, Martin Huddleston, Dave Raymer, John Strassner and Willie Donnelly Abstract. The 2006 MACE workshop [1][28] has presented the drivers and challenges of Autonomic Networking [2] and fostered an understanding of emerging principles for this new type of networks [3]. In this paper, we present concepts and principles that define a technological neutral, architectural per- spective of Autonomic Networks. The work presented in largely based on work within the Architecture team of the TeleManagement Forum (Techno- logical Neutral Architecture, [4]) and joined research work of industrial and academic research teams (for example Ericsson [5], HP & QinetiQ [6] and Motorola [7]). The goal of this paper is to provide the reader with manage- ability guidelines and architectural patterns leading to the development of manageable autonomic software and communication systems. We present a component-based, distributed system architecture and an associated set of critical system services that Autonomic Networks require. Since we tackle the problem from a technologically neutral angle, this paper will not prescribe a single new technology, but rather provide a means that allows for federating different technologies, each of which offers particular advantages at business and system levels. In particular, it enables business concepts and principles to drive system design and architectures. This may be further implemented using currently available distributed systems information technologies. Keywords. Technological Neutral Architecture, Autonomic, Contract. The 1st IEEE Workshop on Modelling Autonomic Communication Environments was part of MANWEEK 2006 (October 25-26, 2006, Dublin, Ireland); organised by the founder of the Autonomic Communications Forum (Radu Popescu-Zeletin, FhG FOKUS), the ACF Chair (John Strassner, Motorola Labs) and the ACF Academic Co-Chair (Willie Donnelly, WIT). Most of the work presented in this paper is based and extracted from the TMF TNA as described in [4]. Sven is the current editor of this document. Dave, John and Joel are Dis- tinguished Fellows, Joel leads the Architecture Team in the TMF, Martin leads the Service Providers Leadership Council. All co-authors have actively contributed to the the TNA [4].