Cloud roadmap for US Government released

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the lead technical agency for the US government, has released a new cloud computing roadmap and reference architecture.

The documents will help federal agencies understand the standards they should use when deploying clouds, as well as the different categories of cloud services that can be used by governments.

The NIST Cloud Computing Standards Roadmap includes a standards inventory which covers standards for key features of deploying a cloud computing architecture, such as security, portability, and interoperability.

It also identifies models and cases that are relevant to cloud computing and identifies standardisation priorities for the federal government in the areas of security auditing and compliance, identity and access management.

The NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture is a vendor-neutral design meant to serve as a guideline for agencies.

The agency expects to release a comprehensive NIST US Government Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap in November.

The NIST Standards Working Group Co-convener Michael Hogan said, “The roadmap encourages federal agencies to become involved with developing specific cloud computing standards projects that support their priorities in cloud computing services to move cloud computing standards forward.”

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