This special issue of the IBM Systems Journal explores a broad set of ideas and approaches to autonomic computing—some first steps in what we see as a journey to create more self-managing computing systems. Autonomic computing represents a collection and integration of technologies that enable the creation of an information technology computing infrastructure for IBM's agenda for the next era of computing—e-business on demand. This paper presents an overview of IBM's autonomic computing initiative. It examines the genesis of autonomic computing, the industry and marketplace drivers, the fundamental characteristics of autonomic systems, a framework for how systems will evolve to become more self-managing, and the key role for open industry standards needed to support autonomic behavior in heterogeneous system environments. Technologies explored in each of the papers presented in this issue are introduced for the reader.