[April 03, 2012]

Cloud Standards Customer Council to Hold Webinar to Introduce the "Practical Guide to Cloud Service Level Agreements"

The Cloud Standards Customer Council (CSCC) will be holding a webinar to introduce the completed "Practical Guide to Cloud Service Level Agreements," on Tuesday, April 10, 2012 at 11:00 a.m. EDT. The Guide itself will be published and available for free download on April 10. To register to attend this free webinar, visit http://www.cloud-council.org/sla-pr. The Guide highlights the critical elements of a service level agreement (SLA) for cloud computing and provides guidance on what to expect and what to be aware of when negotiating an SLA. The guide articulates a set of requirements from a consumer's perspective and identifies elements that need to be addressed via open standards through CSCC's liaison partnerships with key standards development organizations.

Melvin Greer, senior fellow and chief strategist, Cloud Computing, Lockheed Martin (News - Alert); chair, CSCC steering committee, will lead the webinar describing the rationale behind the development of the guide, the target audience and the intended benefits of the guide. A question and answer period will immediately follow the presentation.

Mr. Greer commented, "Cloud service level agreements are important to clearly set expectations for service between cloud consumers and providers. Providing guidance to decision makers on what to expect and what to be aware of as they evaluate and compare SLAs from cloud computing providers is critical since standard terminology and values for cloud SLAs are emerging but currently do not exist."

"Today, customers complain regularly that SLAs are just another form of vendorboilerplate, to the extent they exist at all, and that it is difficult if not impossible to get much modification. They also point out that they want the SLA because it will cause the provider to put some skin in the game, not because the penalties would solve their problems in the case of outages or other situations covered by the SLA. That doesn't mean we don't need SLA's; we do. It's important we make it clear what is going on now versus what we would like to see/influence for the future and when we are hoping that future will occur," said Amy Wohl, principal consultant of Wohl Associates and member of the Practical Guide working group.

Representatives from the following organizations developed the Practical Guide to Cloud Service Level Agreements, along with input and feedback from the general CSCC membership: Boeing (News - Alert), CA Technologies, cebe IT & KM, Cloud Perspectives, CloudOne Corporation, Ekartha, Fort Technologies, Hoboken Consulting Group LLC, IBM (News - Alert), The Kroger Co., Lockheed Martin, Powersoft Computer Solutions Ltd, Second University of Naples, and Wohl Associates.

Anyone interested in learning more about the "Practical Guide to Cloud Service Level Agreements" should attend this free webinar and download a free copy of the guide. Visit http://www.cloud-council.org/sla-pr to register.

Membership in the CSCC is free for qualified end-user organizations. The membership application is available at http://www.cloud-council.org/application. Vendors may join as sponsors. For membership or sponsorship questions, contact Ken Berk at ken.berk@omg.org or +1-781-444 0404.

About the Cloud Standards Customer Council

The Cloud Standards Customer Council (CSCC) is an OMG^® end user advocacy group dedicated to accelerating cloud's successful adoption, and drilling down into the standards, security and interoperability issues surrounding the transition to the cloud. The Council is not a standards organization, but will complement existing cloud standards efforts and establish a core set of client-driven requirements to ensure cloud users will have the same freedom of choice, flexibility, and openness they have with traditional IT environments. The Cloud Standards Customer Council is open to all end-user organizations. IBM, Kaavo, Rackspace (News - Alert) and Software AG are Founding Sponsors. For more information on CSCC, visit http://www.cloud-council.org.

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