ISO publishes cloud standards
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Expanding NIST's guidance, the International Standards Organization released two standards for cloud computing.
In an effort to clear away some of the haziness surrounding cloud computing, the International Standards Organization and the International Electrotechnical Commission, together with the International Telecommunication Union, released two International Standards for cloud computing.
Based on the views of government and industry experts from over 30 countries, the new standards lay down the basic terminology and architectural framework of the expanding cloud industry.
ISO/IEC 17789, Cloud computing – Reference architecture contains diagrams and descriptions of how various aspects of cloud computing relate to one another and includes cloud computing roles, activities and functional components and their relationships.
ISO/IEC 17788, Cloud computing – Overview and vocabulary provides definitions of common cloud computing terms, including those for cloud services such as software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS), according to the ISO release. It also specifies terminology for cloud deployment models such as public and private cloud.
ISO/IEC 17788 draws on definitions developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, including SP 800-145: The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing, SP 800-146: Cloud Computing Synopsis and Recommendations and SP 500-292: NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture.
The new standards from ISO give a largely similar definition, choosing to call cloud computing an “evolving paradigm,” according to CloudTech. The ISO’s assessment of cloud’s key concepts – including broad network access, measured service, multi-tenancy, on-demand self-service, rapid elasticity and scalability and resource pooling – ring true with the NIST standards, wrote CloudTech’s James Bourne.
But whereas the NIST standards define PaaS, SaaS and IaaS, ISO’s new document includes seven distinct cloud service categories, including network as a service (NaaS) and data storage as a service (DSaaS).
Similarly, ISO expands on NIST’s 2011 definition on cloud deployment models, adding community cloud to public, private and hybrid, Bourne wrote.
The complete text of the ISO/IEC 17788 standard can be purchased for around $60 and ISO/IEC 17789 for around $187.