Safe and Sound: Cloud Security and Reliability
The thing about hype is that, sooner or later, it’s time to put-up or shut-up. That time, it seems, has come for the cloud.
Here in the U.S., the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) has published its final, official definition of cloud computing, after 15 previous iterations. This "model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources" is more than just web-apps and off-site storage. It’s a definition that characterizes a baseline for cloud computing against which agencies and potential cloud adopters can judge so-called "cloud" services.
By having this standard against which to measure services, according to NIST computer scientist Peter Mell, "They are more likely to reap the promised benefits of cloud—cost savings, energy savings, rapid deployment and customer empowerment." …