Experts Group Spanning Standards Bodies Is Sought to Advise Government, Industry on Cloud Interoperability
A wide array of communications technology standards groups is being asked to create a combined brain trust to ensure that cloud systems can work together, an organizer said. Robert Marcus, a consultant on telecom-cloud standards to Chinese equipment vendor Huawei, said he will propose to the representatives of more than 20 organizations Tuesday at the Telecom Cloud Information Workshop in Santa Clara, Calif., creation of a Cloud Experts Working Group. It would advise industry and particularly government, in aid of cloud interoperability. The group would offer advice on cloud technology, open source and reference architecture, he said.
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A “critical mass of Cloud experts and NIST,” the National Institute of Standards and Technology, “will participate in the Conference, so this is probably the best opportunity for the foreseeable future to put together an interactive information exchange structure across government,” standards development organizations (SDOs) and open-source projects, Marcus told us by e-mail. NIST held a cloud workshop last month in Gaithersburg, Md., at which it asked for the formation of this kind of body, he said, and the experts group may take part in a follow-up NIST event that the agency has mentioned. It’s unclear whether a decision to create the group will be made as soon as Tuesday, Marcus said. He’s scheduled to be the moderator of a four-hour session that day on strategy for developing a roadmap for cloud standards collaboration. It’s to include discussion of the proposed experts body. Earlier in the day, Lee Badger of NIST is set to make a presentation on its Standards Acceleration to Jumpstart Adoption of Cloud Computing effort and Cloud Working Group.
The workshop, and informational presentations Monday, have been organized by the Object Management group, a computer industry standards-setting organization. The more than 20 bodies listed as expected to be represented include ITU-T, the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions, IEEE, ISO SC38, OASIS and the Cloud Security Alliance. Marcus said he and Jenny Huang, in strategic operations and IT standards at AT&T, are the event’s organizers.
The experts group would “provide vendor-neutral high quality information (e.g. on standards) to government and industries developing Cloud Roadmaps,” said a message that Marcus has sent conference participants. “This proposal is a direct result of a recent NIST Workshop recommendation ’to set up a Working Group composed of SDOs, industry, academia, and others to assist NIST in developing its Cloud Roadmap.'” He added, “A respected, international, neutral organization could provide hosting support for the Working Group."
The General Services Administration “recently approved 11 suppliers of Cloud resources to government agencies,” Marcus wrote. “OpenStack and Salesforce.com will also be part of the mix. In the near future, all 13 of these suppliers will probably be running government Cloud applications. To prevent the creation of disjoint ‘Cloud silos’, it is necessary to begin planning for interoperability, portability, and security across multiple Clouds. Based on your knowledge of Cloud standards, open source, and available tools what steps should enterprises and governments take in the next 1-2 years to avoid future costly system integration challenges across Cloud silos? Answering this question is an important generic problem and will provide immediate value to NIST planning and government Cloud deployment.
"One important first step is the development of Reference Architecture (e.g. NIST goal) for different types of Cloud Brokers and Federations,” Marcus continued. “This is an extension of the Cloud Reference Architectures posted by vendors.” He offered a “rough first cut at capabilities and possible standardizations” for three categories of operations, which he labeled arbitrage, mediation and aggregation.