A set of interfaces that are linked and that provide developers with a framework for implementing policy-based management in their applications. Each decision point pattern identifies where decision points are needed in the application to implement the operational flow. Policy Management for Autonomic Computing provides three decision point patters: an auditor pattern, which checks compliance with a specific set of policies; a planner pattern, which uses policies to design or configure a new system; and a virtualization pattern, which provides a virtualized interface to a physical system.