While most IT practitioners and end-users are still trying to wrap their arms around the significant advantages of cloud computing, forward thinkers in the field are exploring the next “Big Thing” in computer science. It’s called autonomic computing. Imagine the implications of self-managed systems. That’s where we’re heading, according to the experts. IBM is credited with starting the process in 2001.

Today, many researchers are actively engaged in seeking the synergies between computer systems, there architecture, databases and networks with machine learning, control theory and bio-inspired computing in order to come up with computer systems capable of managing themselves.

It is generally agreed that before autonomic computing enables us to sit back and let the machines ask and answer the relevant questions that govern productive enterprise, we need to be more proficient in tapping the computer resources currently available on the cloud for greater efficiencies and savings.

<b>The Hot Buttons of Cloud Computing</b>

By all accounts cloud computing has become the hot button of information technology with the potential to make managing business processes easier and less costly. Cloud computing essentially enables end-users, especially businesses that want to keep the lid on their IT expenses, with the ability to pick and choose applications off the Internet.

InfoWorld, the leading IT tracker for professionals, talked to dozens of vendors, analysts, and IT customers to check out the various components of cloud computing. Here's a thumbnail sketch of what the trade journal found to be hot in cloud computing for business:

<b>SaaS:</b>  
This type of cloud computing delivers a single application through the browser to thousands of customers using a multitenant architecture. On the customer side, it means no upfront investment in servers or software licensing; on the provider side, with just one app to maintain, costs are low compared to conventional hosting.  

<b>Utility computing:</b>
The idea is not new, but this form of cloud computing is getting new life from Amazon.com, Sun, IBM, and others who now offer storage and virtual servers that IT can access on demand. Early enterprise adopters mainly use utility computing for supplemental, non-mission-critical needs, but one day, they may replace parts of the datacenter 

<b>Web services in the cloud:</b>  
Closely related to SaaS, Web service providers offer APIs that enable developers to exploit functionality over the Internet, rather than delivering full-blown applications. They range from providers offering discrete business services -- such as Strike Iron and Xignite -- to the full range of APIs offered by Google Maps, ADP payroll processing, the U.S. Postal Service, Bloomberg, and even conventional credit card processing services.

<b>Platform as a service:</b>  
Another SaaS variation, this form of cloud computing delivers development environments as a service. You build your own applications that run on the provider's infrastructure and are delivered to your users via the Internet from the provider's servers. 
 
<b>MSP (managed service providers):</b>  One of the oldest forms of cloud computing, a managed service is basically an application exposed to IT rather than to end-users, such as a virus scanning service for e-mail or an application monitoring service (which Mercury, among others, provides). 
