[occi-wg] CloudWatch Proposal & OGF contributions & participation & LoS letter

[Sill, Alan]

Silvana,

Many apologies for the delay in responding.  I am afraid I have been out of commission with a nasty but undetermined illness that has finally run its course, which took me out of communication for most of the last part of December.

I have distributed your request within OGF for feedback.  While I suspect there is considerable interest on many points that you mention below from several people who are active in OGF, in practice we are all also quite busy, and I know that many are working on their own EC funding proposals also.

Let me do what I can to interpolate from what I know and what I have discussed recently with people involved in OGF work groups.

1) OGF explicitly tries not to take sides between competing projects during the selection phase of funding, but has always been happy to provide general letters of encouragement and support.  As you note, OGF is already involved in several projects on its own that are similar to and compatible with the goals that you describe, and if helpful, we would be happy to provide a letter describing these and offering to exchange information on a cooperative basis with CloudWATCH.  (Of course, we would do so for any other project that asked, in general terms, as well.)  So a partnership of the sort that you describe in part A) below is certainly possible.

2) In terms of collaboration that would more closely occupy members of the OGF community in common standards profile definition, we are also happy to cooperate.  We do already have direct liaison relationships with ISO JTC1 SC 38 and the ITU-T JCA-Cloud committees, it should be noted and intend to present an OGF profile and list of relevant standards at the joint meeting of these bodies in Geneva, just before CloudScape V.  

As you know, OGF is a diverse community with a  wide range of individual talent as well as project and some corporate participation, but our processes for developing, refining, approving and publishing official OGF documents are well defined, so it is easy therefore for us to present and explain the output of these processes in terms of the published documents to outside observers.  But that having been said, it is always valuable to encounter fresh perspectives and external impetus to refine and extend the OGF document set and explanations of our output.

I think given these restrictions that it may be best for us to provide you with a general letter of support in broad terms from OGF that does not take sides during selection, but offers support for your goals of identifying the relevant IAAS standards that you seek to study in this project.

Of course, OGF does have already some of the most successful standards in the field in this area, so we would be delighted to work with you more closely if you can identify a way for us to do so that does not put us unduly into competition with other projects we may also work with and support.

Please let me know what will work best for you.  I can get a letter to you in short order, now that I am recovered.

Alan

On Dec 17, 2012, at 8:44 AM, Silvana Muscella <s.muscella at trust-itservices.com> wrote:

> Dear Alan, 
> 
> I am coming to you to understand what contribution you would like to carry out with the CloudWATCH proposal. 
> We would clearly like to have engagement with OGF & specifically the efforts taking place around OCCI, SAJACC, Cloud Plugfests and would like to understand whether OGF would be interested in 2 options: 
> 
> A) coming on board as a full partner to the project (if you are US legal entity it would be without funding effort I am afraid the EC has confirmed this to me) but it would be very good to have you listed yo be able to have support from your working group the efforts we would like to drive forward in the development of a common standards profile. 
> 
> B) Alternatively, we would like to set aside some budget if the partner option is not a feasible one to have members of OGF collaborating with CloudWATCH around the use case activity as well as the common standards profile definition. 
> 
> We hope you would see this as an opportunity Alan - we do not have the confirmation of ETSI's participation yet but we do see as the use case activity as a work which can support that coordinated by ETSI in the first quarter of 2013 to drive forward the common standards profile in the second half of 2013. 
> 
> Should you need any further information please let me know I will be happy to provide this & I look forward to hearing from you soon. 
> I copy below the current partner overview list and the CloudWatch abstract.  I am also providing a Letter of Support template that  I would value OGF completing -  I have tailored it with some suggestions in red for OGF specifically feel free to tweak as you see fit (minus the abstract obviously).
> 
> best wishes & thank you Alan . silvana 
> (Deadline Friday 21st December 2012 for feedback) 
> 
> 
> Partners: 
> 	• TRUST-IT Services -UK,
> 	• EGI.eu -NL,
> 	• Oxford eResearch Centre - UK,
> 	• FRAUNHOFER -DE,
> 	• ETSI - FR,  - not yet confirmed
> 	• Business Software Alliance – BE,
> 	• ICT Legal Consulting –IT,
> 	• Cloud Security Alliance CSA- UK,.
> 
> 
> CloudWATCH abstract 
> Today, there is considerable new demand emerging for e-Science services, which could be satisfied by public or private cloud services and infrastructures including not only physical resources, but also data sources, services leading right the way through to computation if existing and perceived barriers can be mitigated. However, given the current fragmented landscape, there is a need for a coherent set of policies, standards and services supporting the development of a pan-European infrastructure & software to achieve economies of scale and a sustainable ecosystem, otherwise much of the potential demand may risk to remain unsatisfied. CloudWATCH will work to build on the current e-Research examples (from the private and public sector) to support the broader needs of the private and public sector including e-Government and e-Science.
> It will identify global Use Cases in both European & international cloud activities, involving Open Collaborative Models, demonstrating interoperability, portability and reversibility which would also cover policy and legal requirements, such as SLA management, as well as technical requirements. CloudWATCH will support the development of a common set of Cloud Policies & help achieve harmonisation in participating communities requirements for clouds across geographical and application areas.  The Use Cases identified can be mapped onto Cloud Standards for the purpose of European governments.
> Research centres and government agencies will considerably benefit from the creation of a common framework for interoperability therefore, CloudWATCH will make a significant contribution to Cloud interoperability which is critical in order to bring cloud innovation to users and to accelerate its adoption.
> Building a common standards profile for the technical interoperability of IaaS cloud services, would consolidate & exploit the already existing cloud federation and integration efforts in Europe and CloudWATCH will be able to take these test bed to the European hosting and cloud provider industry. CLoudWATCH would build on the already existing cloud federation and integration efforts in Europe and elsewhere, leading to a publication through a recognised SDO in this area involved in the expert group.
>  
> To facilitate adoption of this profile a mechanism to certify compliance with the profile will also be developed and operated by a member of the consortia, allowing for different actors within the European Sphere to provide confidence to adopter communities that their services are interoperable around open standards.
> CloudWATCH facilitates international engagement, consolidated from past coordinated efforts (such as SIENA & the Cloudscapeseries) on major cloud standards achievements through the  Pool of Thought Leaders (PTL).
> 
> 
> On 13/12/2012 14:25, Anders Kingstedt wrote:
>> Silvana and David,
>> Thank you for the interesting CC earlier today. I’m writing this just to summarize the call-to-action and to verify that I understand things correctly.
>>  
>> 1 – I will contact the ISO/IEC management to inform them of the ongoing work in Europe. I will propose that ISO as an organization engages in the work. I’ve requested a meeting with Don Deutsch, SC 38 Chair, tomorrow evening (pending his approval and availability). Dave – would you be able to attend? (I’ll include you on the participants list).
>> 2 – If deemed appropriate, I will take on the responsibility of representing ISO SC38 (the sub committee of JTC1 working on Cloud Computing and SOA).
>> 3 – The main objective, from an overarching point of view, is to A – make sure that all parties involved are taking decisions and plan their work based on a “full disclosure” basis and B – we commonly work towards the goal of avoiding work being done in parallel / with overlap. I believe the current work in the ISO – ITU-T CT to be of some significance.
>> 4 – I will run the Objectives list by some of the experts in the ISO-ITU-T CT. The intention of that would be to map the listed Objectives with the corresponding objectives of our ongoing work.  I’m not sure the we have 1-to-1 mapping, but I’m certain that some objectives coincide.
>>  
>> As you possibly understood during our CC I have not had a chance to read up on many of the initiatives you talked about, Silvana. Please bear this in mind. I apologize, in advance, for potentially proposing actions that have already been covered in / by ongoing initiatives in Europe (or elsewhere).
>>  
>> Keeping track of what is going on in the standards space IS in fact a daunting task. I would argue that the EC itself is not fully aligned in terms of synchronizing various initiatives coming out of Brussels (I do have some insight into the LSP arena, being involved in PEPPOL and the upcoming e-SENS project). But it IS an overwhelming task to understand what is what and “who does what”. In all honesty, Cloud Computing (in this case) is in itself of course a very complex thing consisting of many different elements – architectural blocks, technology, agreements, business models, its own set of vocabulary, functional as well as non-functional requirements, use cases and more. One single area might in itself be hard to comprehend and many different aspects might be covered in work done in many different organizations. Sometimes, too, cross cutting aspects are covered in different circumstances, adding to the challenge of getting a grip on how things are related…*
>>  
>> * - the complexity of CC is indeed reflected in many of the long and hard discussions we’re having right now in the ISO-ITU-T Collaborative Team effort on Reference Architecture…Service Delivery is just one example of an aspect that has been presented as an potential future work element  of SC38. That work naturally needs to be aligned with the SC7 is doing in a bordering area. Cross cutting aspects such as interoperability issues, security, platform API:s and more are other examples of elements that I know are being subject to standards development in different SDO’s.  Sometimes, out of practical purposes, topics  however might need to be processed in different contexts (as opposed to in one place) out sheer practical purposes. However well founded it might be to concentrate work in one are to one single place / organization, a topic sometimes needs to be processed and applied to a specific domain for it to be useful. The way to avoid unnecessary multiplicity and to avoid double work is obviously to communicate and make sure that information is available and flowing “freely”. Which is what we’re trying to do now, right? J
>>  
>> More soon.
>>  
>> All the best,
>>  
>> Anders Kingstedt | Softarc AB
>> +46 70 2720304 | anders.kingstedt at softarc.se | Skype:anders.kingstedt
>> Vasagatan 15-17| SE-111 20  Stockholm | Sweden | www.softarc.se
>> Co Convenor, ISO ITU-T CT (Cloud Computing) | Editor, CEN ISSS WS BII-2
>>  
>> Från: Silvana Muscella [mailto:s.muscella at trust-itservices.com] 
>> Skickat: den 13 december 2012 11:22
>> Till: Anders Kingstedt
>> Kopia: dpb at 19770.org; 'Hilary Hanahoe'; 'Stephanie Parker'; n.ferguson at trust-itservices.com
>> Ämne: Re: SV: CC Thursday
>>  
>> Dear Anders, David, 
>> 
>> just sending you some objectives of the call text below in preparation to our skype call shortly - can you give me a window of another 15 mins please so can I call you in at 11:45? cET 
>> thank you
>> silvana 
>> 
>> 
>> OBJECTIVE 1:Identify Global Use Cases in both European & international cloud activities, involving Open Collaborative Models, demonstrating interoperability, portability and reversibility. They should include not just technical requirements but also policy and legal requirements such as SLA management.
>> 
>> OBJECTIVE 2: Support the development of a common set of Cloud Policies & help achieve harmonisation in participating communities requirements for clouds across geographical and application areas.  The Use Cases identified can be mapped onto Cloud Standards for the purpose of European governments. 
>> 
>> OBJECTIVE 3: Develop a common standards profile for the technical interoperability of IaaS cloud services building on the already existing cloud federation and integration efforts in Europe and elsewhere, leading to a publication through a recognised SDO in this area. To facilitate adoption of this profile a mechanism to certify compliance with the profile will also be developed and operated by a member of the consortia, allowing for different actors within the European Sphere to provide confidence to adopter communities that their services are interoperable around open standards.
>> 
>> OBJECTIVE 4: Facilitate international engagement, consolidated from past coordinated efforts (such as through the sustainable effort Cloudscapeseries.eu, past projects:  OGF-Europe & SIENA) on major cloud standards achievements through the  Pool of Stakeholders on Global Interoperability through Standardisation (PSGI). This could also achieved by organising the eConcertation meetings on an annual basis and ensuring the RTD projects funded are fully aligned & exposed to current cloud standards efforts. 
>> 
>> On 11/12/2012 16:34, Anders Kingstedt wrote:
>> Perfect – I’ll book 11.30 in my calendar / A
>>  
>> Anders Kingstedt | Softarc AB
>> +46 70 2720304 | anders.kingstedt at softarc.se | Skype:anders.kingstedt
>> Vasagatan 15-17| SE-111 20  Stockholm | Sweden | www.softarc.se
>> Co Convenor, ISO ITU-T CT (Cloud Computing) | Editor, CEN ISSS WS BII-2
>>  
>> Från: Silvana Muscella [mailto:s.muscella at trust-itservices.com] 
>> Skickat: den 11 december 2012 16:27
>> Till: Anders Kingstedt
>> Kopia: dpb at 19770.org; 'Hilary Hanahoe'; 'Stephanie Parker'; n.ferguson at trust-itservices.com
>> Ämne: Re: CC Thursday
>>  
>> Dear Anders, 
>> yes can we make it at midday as I have a meeting that could run over. 
>> I have found you on skype if you can accept me I shall call you in from there. Should David wish to participate too then please David send me your skype details as well. 
>> with thanks 
>> silvana 
>> 
>> On 11/12/2012 16:16, Anders Kingstedt wrote:
>> Should we set up a CC on Thursday, say at 11.30? If so – let me know if this is possible. I’ve got access to GoToMeeting if you plan for multiple participants.
>> Best regards,    
>>  
>> Anders Kingstedt | Softarc AB
>> +46 70 2720304 | anders.kingstedt at softarc.se | Skype:anders.kingstedt
>> Vasagatan 15-17| SE-111 20  Stockholm | Sweden | www.softarc.se
>> Co Convenor, ISO ITU-T CT (Cloud Computing) | Editor, CEN ISSS WS BII-2
>>  
>> Från: Silvana Muscella [mailto:s.muscella at trust-itservices.com] 
>> Skickat: den 11 december 2012 09:47
>> Till: Anders Kingstedt
>> Kopia: dpb at 19770.org; 'Hilary Hanahoe'; 'Stephanie Parker'; n.ferguson at trust-itservices.com
>> Ämne: Re: SV: CloudWatch - CSA proposal dedicated funding set aside for ISO efforts here
>>  
>> Dear Anders, 
>> can you provide us with an overview of your company by the way as I cannot see an English version correct ?
>> with thanks
>> silvana 
>> 
>> 
>> On 10/12/2012 20:48, Anders Kingstedt wrote:
>> Dear Dave, Silvana and Hilary et al,
>> I’m delighted that Dave went through the trouble of hunting me down (I changed jobs in August). I been talking with Jamil Chawki (ITU-T SG13), with whom I’m currently working as convenor in the ISO – ITU-T collaborative team (a ISO – ITU-T joint effort to produce global standards within the Cloud Computing space). I suggest that we set up a conference call to discuss how ISO can fit into the picture. Incidentally, I’ve discussed the EC’s Cloud Computing Cloud Strategy with some of the influential stakeholders here in Sweden – I’m involved in several EU level projects (such e-SENS, OpenPEPPOL and the CEN WS BII/BII 2) and believe that a combined effort to expose and develop (where needed) standards related to Cloud Computing is indeed crucial in order successfully implement the EU Cloud Computing strategy.
>>  
>> Let me know when, at your convenience, you can participate in a CC.
>>  
>> All the best,
>>  
>> Anders Kingstedt | Softarc AB
>> +46 70 2720304 | anders.kingstedt at softarc.se | Skype:anders.kingstedt
>> Vasagatan 15-17| SE-111 20  Stockholm | Sweden | www.softarc.se
>> Co Convenor, ISO ITU-T CT (Cloud Computing) | Editor, CEN ISSS WS BII-2
>>  
>> Från: dpb at 19770.org [mailto:dpb at 19770.org] 
>> Skickat: den 10 december 2012 18:27
>> Till: 'Silvana Muscella'; 'Hilary Hanahoe'
>> Kopia: 'Stephanie Parker'; n.ferguson at trust-itservices.com; Anders Kingstedt
>> Ämne: RE: CloudWatch - CSA proposal dedicated funding set aside for ISO efforts here
>>  
>> Hi Silvana,
>>  
>> I’ve written to Anders Kingstedt to get his input, as he is the best placed to speak for Cloud Computing in Europe for ISO (or ISO/IEC), as he is based in Sweden, and is co-convener of SC38 WG3 which is the working group specifically responsible for Cloud Computing.  [I previously gave you his address as anders.kingstedt at ecru.se which I have just tried, but which bounced.  I’ve found a more recent address which is anders.kingstedt at SOFTARC.SE and now sent my query to him there.]  Cloud Computing potentially includes all of IT, and hence all of ISO/IEC, so much that is relevant to Cloud Computing in ISO/IEC happens outside of SC38 WG3, with the work in SC7 WG21 on Software Asset Management being a major case in point.  I would like to see more coordination between EC efforts and ISO/IEC efforts.
>>  
>> You are welcome to follow up with Anders directly if you wish.  Alternatively, I will get back to you when I hear back from him.
>>  
>> Best regards,
>>  
>> Dave Bicket
>>  
>> From: Silvana Muscella [mailto:s.muscella at trust-itservices.com] 
>> Sent: Sunday, December 09, 2012 10:23 AM
>> To: dpb at 19770.org; Hilary Hanahoe
>> Cc: Stephanie Parker; n.ferguson at trust-itservices.com
>> Subject: CloudWatch - CSA proposal dedicated funding set aside for ISO efforts here
>>  
>> Dear David, 
>> 
>> I am putting together a support action for the European commission deadline 15th January 2013.
>> 
>> ETSI are being approached to join several consortia  - so we do not know whether they will choose to come in on ours if they do not we shall go ahead of course an ensure we have the buy in from the SDOs .
>> I like the idea of providing dedicated, funding support to the SDOs & in your case with ISO the proposal would be working on efforts to synchronise this globally & the results could feed into the roadmap that ETSI coordinates and as part of the European cloud strategy.
>> 
>> I have elaborated a work plan as well  - who can I talk to in ISO to see how we can  structure this in with the effort in the attachment - especially under WP2 & WP3.
>> Would ISO be interested in coming forward with this on a more coordinated level?
>> best wishes
>> silvana
>> No virus found in this message.
>> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
>> Version: 2012.0.2221 / Virus Database: 2634/5448 - Release Date: 12/09/12
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> ------------------------------------------ 
>> Silvana Muscella
>>  
>> Managing Director - Trust-IT Services Ltd
>>  
>> Tel  +39 050 28359
>> Mobile +39 346 2233822  
>> Web Trust-itservices.com
>> Skype silvana.muscella
>> Twitter TrustITSiv
>> No virus found in this message.
>> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
>> Version: 2012.0.2221 / Virus Database: 2634/5450 - Release Date: 12/10/12
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> ------------------------------------------ 
>> Silvana Muscella
>>  
>> Managing Director - Trust-IT Services Ltd
>>  
>> Tel  +39 050 28359
>> Mobile +39 346 2233822  
>> Web Trust-itservices.com
>> Skype silvana.muscella
>> Twitter TrustITSiv
>> No virus found in this message.
>> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
>> Version: 2012.0.2221 / Virus Database: 2634/5450 - Release Date: 12/10/12
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> ------------------------------------------ 
>> Silvana Muscella
>>  
>> Managing Director - Trust-IT Services Ltd
>>  
>> Tel  +39 050 28359
>> Mobile +39 346 2233822  
>> Web Trust-itservices.com
>> Skype silvana.muscella
>> Twitter TrustITSiv
>> No virus found in this message.
>> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
>> Version: 2012.0.2221 / Virus Database: 2634/5454 - Release Date: 12/12/12
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> ------------------------------------------ 
> Silvana Muscella
> 
> Managing Director - Trust-IT Services Ltd
> 
> Tel  +39 050 28359
> Mobile +39 346 2233822  
> Web Trust-itservices.com
> Skype silvana.muscella
> Twitter TrustITSiv
> 
> <Letterofsupport_OGF.docx>