ITU progresses cloud interoperability

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 09 February 2012 15:27

The International Telecommunication Union's Telecoms sector (ITU-T) Study Group 13 (SG 13) has created a new working party on cloud computing.

The group has been tasked with progressing the technical reports that were the output of a previous focus group on cloud computing towards formalisation as ITU-T recommendations.

The ITU announced last month that the ITU-T Focus Group on Cloud Computing would be replaced by a new joint coordination activity on cloud computing (JCA-Cloud) to be lead by ITU-T Study Group 13, which covers future networks including mobile and NGN.

Jamil Chawki of France Telecom Orange has been appointed chair of the WP. It will take responsibility for existing SG 13 work on cloud computing as well as three new questions:

- Cloud computing ecosystem, inter-cloud and general requirements; chaired by Kangchan Lee (ETRI, Korea);

- Cloud functional architecture, infrastructure and networking; Chaired by Mingdong Li (ZTE, China);

- Cloud computing resource management and virtualisation; chaired by Richard C Brackney (Microsoft, USA).

Also, SG 13 has appointed Monique Morrow of Cisco Systems as convener of JCA Cloud, which will "coordinate the multi-dimensional study of cloud computing within the ITU, and will act as a point of contact for other organisations seeking to contribute to this work."

According to the ITU, "Cloud computing is an industry expected to grow at an annual growth rate of roughly 30 percent, consequently more than quadrupling in size between 2010 and 2015 to become an industry worth approximately $120 billion.

"However, concerns with the portability - freedom to transfer data between the clouds of different providers - and the interoperability of cloud solutions has led to calls for standardisation to fuel further industry growth."

It added: "ITU's cloud computing work has already attracted a great deal of interest resulting in several new memberships."