‘Cloud Computing‘ is an evolving paradigm; indeed, the term ‘cloud‘ is often used ambiguously and can be confusing. Many of the benefits of cloud present obvious reasons for using it, but some aspects such as, security, protection of Personal Identifiable Information and corporate governance have been identified as major concerns, and in some cases even an impediment to its adoption.

It is therefore critical that when a system or service is sold as being hosted ‘in the cloud,’ companies understand exactly what they are signing up for. Thankfully, there are two worldwide standards to help you decide whether the service you are considering for your business is truly a cloud service.

‘Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resource, that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.‘ — [NIST definition of Cloud Computing]

National Institue of Standards and Technology (part of the US Department of Commerce) published their standard 800-145 in September 2011.

https://www.nist.gov/publications/nist-definition-cloud-computing

International Organization for Standards (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) published their edition in October 2014.

https://www.iso.org/standard/60544.html

If you would like advice and guidance with a digital transformation programme to move your IT services to the cloud, MIC Solutions Ltd would be delighted to help.