As we move towards a blended computing model where services in the cloud are coupled with on-premise applications to create the fabric for the next generation of enterprise computing, the question a lot of people ask is how are we going to manage all this?

One answer is to rely on a suite of systems management tools that place agents on these services that allow IT manager to remotely manage and monitor those services. Another answer would be for the providers of cloud computing services to provide management tools that are remotely accessible to their customers.

This latter approach seems to be the direction that Mosso, a unit of Rackspace, is heading in. The company today is touting the roll out of a new Control Panel that allows customers to manage all the applications and system they have running within the Rackspace hosted computing environment.

The Mosso tool was built using application development tools from Google, which shows an increased appreciation for first class system management tools on the part of the proponents of cloud computing. But while Mosso is to be congratulated for making it easier to manage IT assets in the cloud, it's only one small step towards replicating the sophisticated suite of management tools that IT organizations require to not only manage the systems, but also account for what data is where in order to be in compliance with any number of regulatory requirements.

It will be interesting to watch as vendors such as Rackspace, which just expanded its set of cloud services, Amazon, Google and Salesforce.com vie for a piece of the emerging cloud computing market, And there's not doubt that as time goes on management tools for the cloud will only get better. While they may not be everything we need today, we can at least say significant progress is being made.