The State Of Cloud Platform Standards: Q2 2015

Infrastructure and operations (I&O) pros look to cloud computing services to enable flexibility and scalability for agile applications, but many fear vendor lock-in. Applications, products, and entire businesses are vulnerable to the success and decisions of a single vendor without standardization. As Forrester stated in 2011, standards development organizations (SDOs), market leaders, and open source solutions will create de facto standards that together will influence overall cloud standards. This report serves as an update to our Q1 2014 report on cloud platform standards. Overall de facto standards set by early market leaders continue to rule the day, SDOs are releasing their first legitimate standards, and in 2014, OpenStack became the newest de facto standard. The single biggest change was the welcoming embrace of open source communities into the standards creation process by SDOs. This report examines the current state of cloud standards as well as future projections so that I&O professionals can make informed decisions when it comes to their cloud strategy.