This volume contains the proceedings of the Third International DMTF Academic Alliance Workshop on Systems and Virtualization Management: Standards and the Cloud (SVM 2009) held in Wuhan, China, during September 22-23, 2009. The SVM 2009 proceedings are intended for use by students of systems and vir- alization management. The reader is presumed to have a basic knowledge of systems management technologies and standards at the level provided, for example, by the Common Information Model (CIM) standard for modeling management resources. The student of systems management will find here material that could be included in an advanced study program. These proceedings should furthermore allow students to acquire an appreciation of the breadth and variety of systems and virtualization m- agement research. The proceedings also illuminate related standards and research issues, answering questions such as: what are the implications of virtualization for distributed systems management, which advances in information models and protocols aid in managing virtualization, what new problems will we incur when managing virtualized systems and services, and how might management itself benefit from virtualization? Topics related to managing distributed systems, virtualization of distributed - sources/services and work in management standardization are also highlighted. There were 28 regular paper submissions. These went through an active review process, with each submission reviewed by at least three members of the Program Committee. We also sought external reviews from experts in certain areas. All these inputs were used by the Program Committee in selecting a final program with 12 regular papers.