A sub-group of the Cloud Select Industry Group’s published new cloud SLA standardisation guidelines for cloud users in June 2014. An agreement between a cloud service provider and a cloud computing customer is typically attached to a contract between the two and defines the technical and legal aspects of the service offered.
The guidelines will help reassure cloud users that the Service Level Agreement and the contract with the cloud provider meet key requirements. These include:
- the availability and reliability of the cloud service being purchased
- the quality of support services they receive from their cloud provider
- what happens to their data when they terminate their contract
- the security levels they need for their data
- how to better manage the data they keep in the cloud.
The guidelines were the outcome of detailed discussions within the C-SIG Service Level Agreements Sub group (C-SIG SLA) on questions such as whether SLAs should be the same for public and private clouds, whether SLAs should be standardised (and if so whose responsibility this is), and how to help SMEs identify their SLA requirements for cloud services.
The guidelines have now been passed on to the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) working group on cloud computing as an input to ISO Woking Group on cloud computing. The C-SIG SLA will present the SLA Standardisation Guidelines as well as its comments to the ISO draft during the meeting of this organisation in Sao Paolo in October. This international impact will maximise the impact and value of the guidelines.
Background information
Read the full article in net-cloud future magazine.