EC issues cloud guidelines
EC issues cloud guidelines
The European Commission (EC) has finally issued its guidelines for businesses providing cloud computing services and customers using the cloud.
It’s hoped the guidelines will speed take-up of the cloud across the EU by tackling trust and confidence issues that have held back the adoption of the technology.
The EC said the guidelines are needed as it works towards the introduction of standard service level agreements (SLAs), which will display what is expected from each party.
EC vice president Viviane Reding said: "The new guidelines will help generate trust in innovative computing solutions and hep EU citizens save money.
“More trust means more revenue for companies in Europe's digital single market. This is the same spirit as the EU data-protection reform, which aims at boosting trust. A competitive digital single market needs high standards of data protection.”
The Commissioner said the guidelines were ‘step in the right direction’ towards safe and fair cloud computing contract terms.
They were introduced after consultations with a number of partners including the Cloud Select Industry Group, which includes Atos, Cloud Security Alliance, the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security, IBM, Microsoft and SAP.
The EC’s Digital Agenda vice president Neelie Kroes said that the latest guidelines were the first to bring together cloud suppliers in the agreeing common standards for SLAs. She said that small businesses would be most likely to benefit from the latest development.
Search and security firm Alert Logic said the guidelines were a key part of helping firms to understand how to work with the cloud and those adopting the technology should make sure their provider meets the standards.
“As the threat from cyber attack and data loss increases at an exponential rate, mature and reliable cloud security needs to be top of the mind of any business leader,” company vice-president for research and intelligence, Will Semple told V3.
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