A server computer system includes a keep-alive autonomic adjustment mechanism that monitors current operating conditions and dynamically adjusts the keep-alive specification to optimize the keep-alives for the current operating conditions. The keep-alive autonomic adjustment mechanism monitors the total number of clients, and the average number of requests per client. The value of a keep-alive specification that determines how log to keep a connection open may be dynamically and autonomically adjusted by the keep-alive autonomic adjustment mechanism according to the monitored current operating conditions. The keep-alive autonomic adjustment mechanism may also include the ability to autonomically enable and disable the keep-alives. In this manner the performance of the server may be tuned to optimize the effect of using keep-alives according to current operating conditions.