Open Cloud Manifesto

As announced earlier this week, IBM has been a major contributor to the drafting of the Open Cloud Manifesto which is avaialble for download at http://www.opencloudmanifesto.org/.

The goal and purpose of this manifesto is excellently described in the introductory chapter:

The industry needs an objective, straightforward conversation about how this new computing paradigm will impact organizations, how it can be used with existing technologies, and the potential pitfalls of proprietary technologies that can lead to lock-in and limited choice.

This document is intended to initiate a conversation that will bring together the emerging cloud computing community (both cloud users and cloud providers) around a core set of principles. We believe that these core principles are rooted in the belief that cloud computing should be as open as all other IT technologies. (p. 2)

The key element of the manifesto is, for sure, the six principles of an open cloud, listed on page 6 of the manifesto. Standards play a key role for cloud computing - without open standards cloud computing will not work. The manifesto rightly stresses the need to use at
and implement available standards and where new standards are needed to proceed in a collaborative and coordinated way.

But read yourself at the Open Cloud Manifesto website.