Cloudonomics: The Business Value of Cloud Computing, + Website

Standards, APIs, Certification, and Rating Agencies

Commodities exchanges and government agencies have rigorous standards defining what can be called U.S. No. 2 Yellow Corn or West Texas Intermediate Crude. Accounting has standards such as generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Appliances have bodies such as Underwriters Laboratories and Consumers Union, publishers of Consumer Reports. Robert Parker gives scores to wine and Morningstar to mutual funds. Similarly, in the cloud, the evolution of both standards bodies and objective third-party ratings agencies can be expected.

According to Steve Diamond, chair of the Cloud Computing Initiative of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the evolution of the cloud—including the emergence of the Intercloud—will require a variety of roles, such as exchanges to handle commercial relationships and gateways to translate data, and thus a variety of standards in areas such as protocols, formats, processes, practices, and governance. Diamond counted dozens of active cloud standards programs in organizations such as the IEEE, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, and others.42

Technical performance benchmarks are nothing new: The Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) is a body whose mission is to “disseminate objective, verifiable. . .performance data.”43 It is likely that either an industry-funded entity, such as TPC, or ...