The Internet has emerged into an integral part of our daily lives, for this reason its solid operation and performance is of paramount social, economical, technological, and scientific importance. To guarantee the solid operation of the Internet, network operators rely on network monitoring, and especially traffic monitoring, devices that collect essential network data that are later used by management systems to analyse and optimise network performance.This proposal is going to research the problem of having an autonomic, independent control system for managing traffic monitoring devices in IP networks. It will focus on the research problems surrounding the autonomic management of monitoring devices; on the design of a control interface for managing such devices; on new innovative methods of processing monitoring data; and on the implementation and evaluation of this interface. This research falls within the greater context of the Internet measurements and autonomic computing research areas. The former seeks to develop techniques for effectively collecting and analysing Internet data, while the latter seeks to develop techniques for automating the management of networks.The proposed research is related to the background of the researcher that has a primary focus on the Internet measurements research area. Moreover, it will enable the researcher to return to a high quality European academic institute in his home country and to work with researchers that have substantial experience on conducting research in the autonomic computing research field. Thus, the proposal combines the strengths of the researcher and of the host institute in order to research a state-of-the-art multidisciplinary problem. Moreover, it will facilitate the reintegration of the researcher in the European research community and will provide the basis on which the researcher will start his post-doctoral career.