Industry group TM Forum has formed a consortium of major cloud services players, to take part in a new initiative to foster the uptake of telco-delivered cloud computing.
The players have together formed the Enterprise Cloud Buyers Council (ECBC), which will work towards ascertaining the needs of the biggest buyers of cloud services - allowing vendors to adjust their offerings in response.
“By lowering the gating factors for widespread adoption of cloud services, the ECBC can accelerate the shift to the next era in computing,” ECBC executive director Eric Pulier said.
The group plans to develop common cloud services product definitions, and address issues such as security, interoperability and data portability.
The consortium will consist of service providers and operators, vendors and enterprise buyers. At present AT&T, BT, Telstra and Telecom Italia are the telcos involved, along with vendors Alcatel-Lucent, Amdocs, CA, Cisco, EMC, HP, IBM, Microsoft and Nokia Siemens.
The initiative has also attracted the support of enterprise buyers such as the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Deutsche Bank.
“The demand for cloud services holds significant potential for the industry,” TM Forum CEO Keith Willetts said.
“However, there are a number of barriers that must be overcome before cloud can become a mass-market success, and the forum is well-placed to act as an orchestrator to address these challenges.”