The State Of Infrastructure-As-A-Service Cloud Standards

December 1st, 2011

Lauren Nelson VP, Research Director

James Staten

With contributors:

Doug Washburn , Christopher Voce , Lindsey Kempton

Summary

Cloud adoption, particularly of infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), is still in the early-adopter phase, and as a result there are no set industry standards. For IT infrastructure and operations (I&O) professionals, this means inconsistent terminology, service-level agreements (SLAs), security features, and functionality — as well as the biggest fear of all: the specter of vendor lock-in. Forrester spoke with a number of industry thought leaders regarding the current and future state of cloud standardization and, as expected, there wasn't a consensus on who will lead the way. This report focuses on the state of cloud standards today, the likely leaders of future standards, and how I&O professionals should navigate these uncertain waters.

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