This volume of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series contains all the papers accepted for presentation at the 13th IFIP/IEEE International Workshop on Distributed Systems: Operations and Management (DSOM 2004), which was held at the University of California, Davis during November 15–17, 2004. DSOM 2004 was the fifteenth workshop in a series of annual workshops and it followed in the footsteps of highly successful previous meetings, the most recent of which were held in Heidelberg, Germany (DSOM 2003), Montreal, Canada (DSOM 2002), Nancy, France (DSOM 2001), and Austin, USA (DSOM 2000). The goal of the DSOM workshops is to bring together researchers in the areas of networks, systems, and services management, from both industry and academia, to discuss recent advances and foster future growth in this field. In contrast to the larger management symposia, such as IM (Integrated Management) and NOMS (Network Operations and Management Symposium), the DSOM workshops are organized as single-track programs in order to stimulate interaction among participants.