Tech giants back standard for cloud portability
Among the allures of cloud computing is the promise of easily and seamlessly moving services from one cloud to another. Realizing that kind of portability, however, is difficult. Every cloud service has its own distinct requirements, such as security, governance, and compliance, as well its constituent parts, including Web server, database, storage, and networking requirements.
In an effort to make cloud service more portable, a group of tech giants that includes IBM, Cisco, EMC, CA, SAP, and Red Hat today unveiled the first draft of open interoperability specification called TOSCA (Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications). Capgemini, Citrix, NetApp, PwC, Software AG, Virtunomic, and WSO2, among others, are also contributors.
TOSCA aims to let companies create interoperable descriptions -- in a sense, templates -- of their application and infrastructure services, the relationships between the parts of the service, and the operational behavior of the services. The open nature of the standard is intended to ensure service interoperability, regardless of supplier, provider, or host technology. Read more...
Big business in big push for cloud computing standards
The rise of cloud computing has led to a strong push from the IT leaders at many major companies for cloud standards around such things as security and data portability.
But the early push for standards is beginning to resemble a NASCAR race -- everyone is is driving on the same track, but are sitting in different cars.
Multiple organizations are in pursuit of the same checkered flag, a set of standards that will facilitate the adoption of cloud computing technologies.
The latest standards group group, the IBM-backed Cloud Standards Customer Council, announced its steering committee this month. Read more...