Open Data Center Alliance (previous CloudAve coverage), an alliance of IT customers with more than $100 Billion in budget with Intel playing the role of technical advisor, last week announced recommendations for customer requirements for cloud computing in the areas related to security, transparency, efficiency and interoperability. Launched in October of 2010, ODCA has three levels of membership: Steering Committee, Contributor and Adopter membership.
Last week’s announcement by the alliance is the release of first user driven requirements for cloud based on their priorities and requirements. The first release includes eight usage models that identifies specific innovations in
- Secure Federation talking about Security Monitoring and Security Provider Assurance
- Automation talking about IO Control and VM Interoperability
- Common Management and Policy highlighting the regulatory framework
- Transparency regarding Carbon Footprint, Service Catalog and Standard Units of measurement for IaaS
You can get more info on these usage models here.
In order to achieve their goals, ODCA is collaborating with a wide range of standards bodies and vendors. Some of the engagements announced last week include:
- Cloud Security Association (CSA) to drive standards definitions for security requirements
- The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) to define IT infrastructure management requirements
- The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) to drive standards for service transparency
- TM Forum’s Enterprise Cloud Leadership Council (ECLC) to advance services definition
Vendors such as Dell, EMC, Parallels and Red Hat have joined the Alliance to collaborate and accelerate products to market that address the requirements of ODCA. When the alliance was launched last year, I had my own doubts about where it is headed. However, the fact that this alliance consists of large enterprise users wanting to take advantage of cloud computing is good enough to give them a chance figuring out the customer needs for cloud computing.
Disclosure: Intel is a CloudAve sponsor
Related articles
- Open Data Center Alliance seeks to describe the cloud (via GigaOM) (techweev.com)
- Unifying the Voice of IT as We Head into the Cloud (datacenterknowledge.com)
- Data Center Group Issues Cloud Usage Guidelines (pcworld.com)
- User Alliance Wants Cloud Interoperability (informationweek.com)
- Data center group issues cloud usage guidelines (networkworld.com)
- Open Data Center Alliance Publishes Usage Models (datacenterknowledge.com)
