Page 19 - Cloud computing: From paradigm to operation

Framework and requirements for cloud computing 1

knowledge over how the resources are being provided or where the resources are located. This
offloads some of the customer's original workload, such as maintenance requirements, to the
provider. Even with this level of abstraction, it should be pointed out that users might still be able
to specify location at a higher level of abstraction (e.g., country, state, or data centre).

6.3 Cloud computing roles and activities
Within the context of cloud computing, it is often necessary to differentiate requirements and issues for
certain parties. These parties are entities that play roles (and sub-roles). Roles, in turn, are sets of activities
and activities themselves are implemented by components. All cloud computing related activities can be
categorized into three main groups: activities that use services, activities that provide services and activities
that support services. It is important to note that a party may play more than one role at any given point in
time and may only engage in a specific subset of activities of that role.

The major roles of cloud computing are:
– Cloud service customer: A party which is in a business relationship for the purpose of using cloud
services. The business relationship is with a cloud service provider or a cloud service partner. Key
activities for a cloud service customer include, but are not limited to, using cloud services,
performing business administration, and administering use of cloud services;
– Cloud service partner: A party which is engaged in support of, or auxiliary to, activities of either the
cloud service provider or the cloud service customer, or both. A cloud service partner's activities
vary depending on the type of partner and their relationship with the cloud service provider and
the cloud service customer. Examples of cloud service partners include cloud auditor and cloud
service broker;
– Cloud service provider: A party which makes cloud services available. The cloud service provider
focuses on activities necessary to provide a cloud service and activities necessary to ensure its
delivery to the cloud service customer as well as cloud service maintenance. The cloud service
provider includes an extensive set of activities (e.g., provide service, deploy and monitor service,
manage business plan, provide audit data, etc.) as well as numerous sub-roles (e.g., business
manager, service manager, network provider, security and risk manager, etc.).

6.4 Cloud capabilities types and cloud service categories
A cloud capabilities type is a classification of the functionality provided by a cloud service to the cloud service
customer, based on the resources used. There are three different cloud capabilities types: application
capabilities type, infrastructure capabilities type, and platform capabilities type, which are different
because they follow the principle of separation of concerns, i.e. they have minimal functionality overlap
between each other.
The cloud capabilities types are:
– Application capabilities type: A cloud capabilities type in which the cloud service customer can use
the cloud service provider's applications;
– Infrastructure capabilities type: A cloud capabilities type in which the cloud service customer can
provision and use processing, storage or networking resources;
– Platform capabilities type: A cloud capabilities type in which the cloud service customer can
deploy, manage and run customer-created or customer-acquired applications using one or more
programming languages and one or more execution environments supported by the cloud service
provider.

There are only three cloud capabilities types defined in this Recommendation | International Standard.
These cloud capabilities types should not be confused with other categorizations of cloud services.

A cloud service category is a group of cloud services that possess some common set of qualities. A cloud
service category can include capabilities from one or more cloud capabilities types.

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