Definition of Cloud Computing - NIST Releases Final SP 800-145

InfoLawGroup attorneys actively follow the work of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), part of the U.S. Commerce Department, which over the past year has been very busy in the areas of Cloud Computing and information data security. Yesterday NIST announced "the final release of Special Publication 800-145, The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing."  NIST's definition of Cloud Computing has been very influential in setting tent pegs in the ground to cabin the scope and discussion of the often nebulous definition of cloud computing.

As NIST notes, SP 800-145 "describes how cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction."

NIST intends the definition "to serve as a means for broad comparisons of cloud services and deployment strategies, and to provide a baseline for discussion from what is cloud computing to how to best use cloud computing."

The NIST Press Release on the release provides additional details and the SP 800-145 webpage allows instant downloaded of SP 800-145 as a PDF.  We'll continue to follow NIST and other organizations' work in cloud computing closely and provide alerts and analysis on significant developments.