Legal
Issue No. 62 - December/January 2011
Definitions, under a computing Cloud
by Mark Henderson
Cloud computing is the latest hot topic in IT Outsourcing.
It has been making headlines all over the world, including in the UK, where the Ministry of Justice published a Cloud Computing Strategy in October and here in Australia where the Department of Finance and Deregulation issued a Cloud Computing Strategic Direction Paper in April.
The thing is, everyone’s idea of what constitutes cloud computing is different, which makes discussions on the topic difficult. It makes structuring deals even more challenging if projects are established based on different norms of cloud computing than what exists in the market.
What is cloud computing?
Cloud computing is an umbrella term which could refer to any number of arrangements in relation to Information and Communication Technology which utilise off-site infrastructure to provide an ICT solution to a client. Examples range from the provision of off-site data storage all the way through to the provision of thin client solutions and desktop virtualisation.
There are three categories of cloud computing which are often referred to. These are Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). As the names suggest, these all relate to making the provision of ICT solutions more akin to service provision than hardware or software related as has been the case in the past. Whereas it used to be the case that you could only obtain software by purchasing a licence, now you can pay to access software online (for example in a webmail service). Another common example is the provision of off-site storage (such as website hosting), which is a form of IaaS.
Considerations for cloud contracts
Businesses are increasingly considering implementing solutions in the cloud, so what should they (and providers) be thinking about? A few of the big issues are set out below, but they are not the only ones, and the issues that are relevant in any given ...
