Group items tagged

Cisco's James Urquhart discusses the NIST definition of Cloud Computing. The National Institute of Technology and Standards is a non regulatory branch of the Commerce Department and is responsible for much of the USA's official participation in World Standards organizations. This is an important discussion, but i'm a bit disappointed by the loose use of the term "network". I guess they mean the Internet? No mention of RESTfull computing or Open Web Standards either. Some interesting clips: ...(The NIST's) definition of cloud computing will be the de facto standard definition that the entire US government will be given...In creating this definition, NIST consulted extensively with the private sector including a wide range of vendors, consultants and industry pundants including your truly. Below is the draft NIST working definition of Cloud Computing. I should note, this definition is a work in progress and therefore is open to public ratification & comment. The initial feedback was very positive from the federal CIO's who were presented it yesterday in DC. Baring any last minute lobbying I doubt we'll see many more major revisions. ....... Cloud computing is a pay-per-use model for enabling available, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. This cloud model promotes availability and is comprised of five key characteristics, three delivery models, and four deployment models.

Gary, NIST really is not "responsible for much of the USA's official participation in World Standards organizations." Lots of legal analysis omitted, but the bottom line is that NIST would have had to be delegated that responsibility by the President, but never was. However, that did not stop NIST from signing over virtually all responsibility for U.S. participation in international standard development to the private ANSI, without so much as a public notice and comment rulemaking process. See section 3 at http://ts.nist.gov/Standards/Conformity/ansimou.cfm. Absolutely illegal, including at least two bright-line violations of the U.S. Constitution. But the Feds have unmistakably abdicated their legal responsibilities in regard to international standards to the private sector.

excerpt: "Developer-led or services-led? Microsoft should get an early advantage, but the services strategy by Cisco should create longer, more sustainable value, Last month I wrote a blog outlining how the line-of-business manager holds the key to winning the Cisco versus Microsoft war. A number of you commented that this was obvious and both companies are already doing it. I'll agree that this is something both companies are trying to do, but neither is doing a great job. Microsoft is a company with high appeal to IT pros and Cisco to network managers, with high brand familiarity to line of business managers but low appeal beyond this."

The ripples from the European Commission v. Microsoft decision continue to flow. The catch, of course, is that the patent rights will almost certainly be subject to the Microsoft Open Specification Promise, a weasel-worded document that actually grants no rights. http://law.bepress.com/unswwps/flrps/art71/ But someone with some clout will push that issue sooner or later.