The BALANCE project aims at investigating the possibilities for improving overall system performance as well as availability of telecommunication computing systems by the use of High Availability middleware. It is our belief that this approach represents a viable step towards "Autonomic Computing" as all decisions regarding the system?s availability are decentralized and distributed. It is the project?s goal to integrate middleware functionality into a layered architecture in order to fully exploit an underlying telecommunication hardware platform?s High Availability core functions. These core functions are exemplified by utilizing dedicated communication platforms. Adhering to this concept, the entire computing system provides High Availability mechanisms throughout its architectural layers and exhibits the qualities of a "Balanced HA Architecture".