An overview of the Cloud Industry Forum was provided by Andy Burton, Chief Executive Officer of Fasthosts. Then an account of the ‘end user perspective’ was given by Ronald Duncan, Chairman and Technical Director, @UKPlc, this morning at the meeting of the ‘Cloud Industry Forum’ at Microsoft, Victoria Street, London SW1.
The “Cloud Industry Forum” is a not-for-profit-organization, and has grown in prominence in the last two years. The Code of Practice was formally launched last year, and is a member-led organization. It is involved in technology standards, such as interoperability and data security. They are seeking to put the standards of the cloud on an international platform, and form constructive collaborations (for example, with Eurocloud). They are heavily involved in outreach work, as an independent party. The service definition is paramount, as well as the service level, working out when a breach is a breach (materially substantial causing to the production of ‘service credits’), and what the cap is (complete exclusion of liability at one end).
Microsoft have latterly joined the Cloud Industry Forum. Microsoft is actually predicted to be one of the two leaders in the cloud computing market over the next few years. Microsoft Corp is large player in the cloud landscape, according to Gartner it offers one of the most visionary and complete views of the cloud and is predicted to be one of the two leaders in the cloud computing market over the next few years. In 2010 Microsoft launched its “Cloud Power” global campaign to help IT professionals better understand the fundamental shift going on in the industry. Bing is a manifestation of their cloud technology, the well known search engine.
In the meeting, research was introduced at the meeting about cloud adoption, including a statistical analysis on how and why UK businesses are adopting the cloud. A second issue is its use in the supply chain, considering how IT can be consumed, including the challenges, opportunities and risks. Adoption appears to be strong and growing, but how is transparency ensured to the end-user about the complexities. Version 6.1 of the Code of Practice is being launched today, encompassing the CAIQ for data security, and enhanced liability tracking for third parties.
What is new about contracting in the cloud? People are used to the notion of click-through agreements. The cloud ensures much more collaborative IT services than previously, and is about ‘business process engineering’, the adoption of skills, increased collaboration, and the way in which stakeholders are changing. There are new entrants to the industry, and how end users perceive competitive advantage through building trust. An example is ‘hosted email’, which could be ‘shrink wrapped’ or a ‘bespoke service’, or by model SaaS, IaaS, managed service, or outsourced. Confidence, clarity and transparency are all required, notwithstanding the complexities of the supply chain; the end-user needs to be clear about who the supplier is, and whether this is clear in the ‘click-through’ agreement.
Things can go wrong e.g. with Amazon web services, but customers normally assume things to be all right. The Cloud Industry Forum has undertaken a significant body of research to investigate trends in end user adoption of Cloud services across the UK. Drawing information from 450 end user organisations across all verticals and scale, as well as 200 suppliers of IT solutions, this research has been structured into a series of informative White Papers. A link to the papers is here.
Cloud providers came to the conclusion that customers could not be liable. This was the starting position in 1999. Large organizations do not like this starting point. Software complexity can vary. Understanding what is available in the stack, data transfer and what the provider offers.
There is a potentially an imbalance from everything between hosted locally to export the cloud. This is definitely a communication message. Shared computers is nothing new, as distributed networks go back to the 1970s. There is a wave now where people do not realize they are using Hotmail or Gmail all the time. There has to be some balance, where people understand what the differences are according to price. A user perspective should understand what the user is getting for the money. Cloud is about repeating renewable business, and contractual clarity will help.
The basic principles are service expectations, good governance, business resilience and end user accountability and drivers. Governance applies to end users and suppliers. It needs to be realistic. Click through agreements are binding. There are big differences between individual customers and business perspectives. That’s why the Cloud Industry Forum is so important, to avoid PR fiascos in damaged reputations such as outtages (recent examples includes Amazon Web Services).
In summary, you may not be obliged to read the contract. The contractual bit is the bit that is too late. There is no wrong or right answer. The issue is not whether right or wrong, or whether users can be given advised.
