Role of Standards in Cloud-Computing Interoperability

In cloud computing, interoperability typically refers to the ability to easily move workloads and data from one cloud provider to another or between private and public clouds. A common tactic for enabling interoperability is the use of open standards, so there is currently a large amount of active work in standards development for the Cloud. This paper explores the role of standards in cloud-computing interoperability. It covers standard-related efforts, discusses several cloud interoperability use cases, and provides some recommendations for moving forward with cloud-computing adoption regardless of the maturity of standards for the cloud.