Research and development of autonomics have come a long way, and we are delighted to present the proceedings of the 3rd IEEE International Workshop on Modelling Autonomic Communications Environments (MACE 2008).Asin the last two years,this workshopwasheld aspart of Manweek,the International Week on Management of Networks and Services, which took place on the lovely Island of Samos in Greece. MACEstartedasanexperimentin2006,andcreatedasmallcommunitythat now?nds itselfattractedbackeachyearby afeeling ofexcitement-thatthere is something new going on. Certainly, MACE is not as shiny or practiced as other well-known conferences and workshops, but we consider this a feature of the workshopitself. New ideas,a little rougharoundthe edges(and sometimes more than a little), often quite un?nished, pop out and provoke extensive discussion. Scienceneeds this kindofexploratoryadventureandwe werestronglymotivated to preservethis atmosphereof explorationanddiscussionin this year'sprogram. ItisalsoveryinterestingtoobservethesupportofindustryforMACE,indicating that there is a need for new ideas outside the classical academic circles. This year, the submissions were more peripheral to the invited themes of the workshop than in the last two years. We saw prototypes emerging and expe- ments maturing that attempt to now employ the principles introduced in pre- ousyears.WecancallthispartofMACEthe"protoautonomics,"acknowledging that we still have some way to go, but that we are at the exciting beginning of the journey. The book you are holding in your hands presents the accepted papers of the technical sessions of MACE 2008. We had 22 submissions, of which 8 were - cepted as full papers. Furthermore,we allowedfour submissions as short papers.