Cloud body completes code of conduct consultation

Andy Burton: Consumers need clarity about cloud providers

The Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) has completed the public consultation phase of its plans to introduce a code of practice.

A draft of the document, which aims to assure end users of the validity of cloud service providers, was made available for public scrutiny in April.

According to CIF, more than 200 organisations participated in the process, including software vendors and IT consultancies.

The final version of the code of practice is expected to be launched in October.

According to the consultation's findings, 89 per cent of participants said having a code of practice would generate benefits for both the IT industry and end users.

Additionally, 20 per cent said the long-term success of cloud would depend on the industry’s ability to demonstrate that data stored online would be secure.

Meanwhile, 15.5 per cent said service providers would also need to be held accountable for service level agreement breeches.

Andy Burton, chairman of CIF, said the public consultation covered issues relating to governance, transparency, capability and accountability.

He added: “We firmly believe that the market needs a credible and certifiable code of practice that provides transparency, so that consumers can have clarity and confidence in their choice of provider.”

Mark Cresswell, president of CIF member Scalable, said: “We firmly believe that we have reached a satisfactory outcome based on broad consent.”