Cloud computing saves money - ITU

The Director for Telecommunication Standardization Bureau at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Mr. Malcolm Johnson, has said that cloud computing saves costs for servers and storage.

He also said that cloud computing offers speed and streamlines application deployment without upfront capital, stressing that for this reason alone, many enterprises, governments and network cum service providers are now considering adaptation of cloud computing to provide more efficient and cost effective network services.

Mr. Johnson who spoke at the end of ITU-T Focus Group on Cloud Computing meeting in Geneva, last weekend, pointed out that cloud is an exciting area of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) where there are a lot of protocols to be designed and standards to be adopted to allow people to best manage their digital assets.

“Our new Focus Group aims to provide some much needed clarity in the area,” he said.
Commenting also, the Vice President, Research at Yankee Group, Camille Mendler, said that cloud computing deployments are being announced on an almost daily basis, pointing out that interoperability, is a challenge.

“Cloud computing is the future of ICTs. It’s urgent to address interoperability issues which could stall global diffusion of new services. Collaboration between private and public sectors is required, and ITU is ideally suited to facilitate productive dialogue,” Mendler said.

Chairman, ITU Focus Group on Cloud Computing, Vladimir Belenkovich, said that the group would investigate requirements for standardization in cloud computing and suggest future study paths for ITU.

“Specifically, we will identify potential impacts in standards development in other fields such as Next Generation Networks (NGN), transport layer technologies, ICTs and climate change, and media coding,” he said.

As outlined the first brief exploratory phase, he said, will determine standardization requirements and suggest how these may be addressed within ITU study groups and work will then begin on developing the standards necessary to support the global rollout of fully interoperable cloud computing solutions.

A recently published ITU-T Technology Watch Report titled ‘Distributed Computing: Utilities, Grids and Clouds’ describes the advent of clouds and grids, the applications they enable, and their potential impact on future standardization.

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