{"id":3668,"date":"2013-04-08T07:00:45","date_gmt":"2013-04-08T15:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.formtek.com\/blog\/?p=3668"},"modified":"2015-02-18T15:33:20","modified_gmt":"2015-02-18T23:33:20","slug":"cloud-computing-are-cloud-standards-standardizing-the-cloud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/cloud-computing-are-cloud-standards-standardizing-the-cloud\/","title":{"rendered":"Cloud Computing: Are Cloud Standards Standardizing the Cloud?"},"content":{"rendered":"
The adoption of standards for a particular market can be \u00a0a good thing. \u00a0The ISO standards body<\/a>, for example, notes some of the benefits of standards are that they can help make business operations more efficient, they can result in overall lower costs for consumers, they can increase productivity, and they can help companies access new markets.<\/div>\n
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Currently many agree that the the introduction of cloud standards would be beneficial for the cloud. \u00a0For example, some think that the lack of industry-wide security standards<\/a> is slowing business adoption of cloud services. \u00a0This desire for cloud standards has caused a flurry of work to be done in drafting them. \u00a0A study by Booz & Company<\/a> found that there are as many as 160 different standards covering different aspects\u00a0of the cloud currently being deployed\u00a0or under consideration. \u00a0But too many standards, or competing and overlapping standards can have its own set of problems. \u00a0Too many standards can lead to confusion.<\/div>\n
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And not everyone agrees on the importance of cloud standards. \u00a0Toby Clarke<\/a>, IT director at insurance specialist Abbey Protection Group in the UK, for one, believes that while standards can be useful, the lack of them shouldn’t necessarily scare away businesses from using the cloud. \u00a0He told Mark Samuels <\/a>of\u00a0CloudPro <\/a>that “not having standards works. \u00a0The cloud should be all about flexibility and layers of technical standards are not necessarily helpful. It would be helpful if there was one standard for cloud across all suppliers. \u00a0But there is no single definition, so what we have right now are not standards but offerings… Creating standards for the cloud is not as simple as putting out an agreed technical specification for something physical, like category 5 cabling. \u00a0Specifications for cloud vary between organisations.”<\/p>\n

James Staten<\/a>, analyst at Forrester, thinks that cloud standards, like for a common API for the cloud are a long ways off. \u00a0Staten told\u00a0TechTarget’s SearchCloudComputing<\/a> that \u201cthere is no compelling reason to comply; not enough enterprise users have established cloud computing initiatives.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

And once a standard is written, there’s also the problem of evaluating the quality and usefulness of it. \u00a0For exmaple, the Booz report warns that a majority of the cloud ‘standards’ work today are being driven by IT vendors who are likely to benefit by writing a standard in a way that favors their technology strengths. \u00a0The Booz report notes that “the chief responsibility for ensuring the success of open standards lies with the community of current and future customers of cloud computing\u2014including enterprises both large and small. Without their active engagement in the process, their need for effective and affordable cloud computing services may be subsumed by the IT industry\u2019s temptation to provide off-the-shelf proprietary solutions that have the added effect of locking customers into their services.”<\/div>\n
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The adoption of standards for a particular market can be \u00a0a good thing. \u00a0The ISO standards body, for example, notes some of the benefits of standards are that they can help make business operations more efficient, they can result in…<\/span><\/p>\n

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