ATIS Forum Brings Service Providers, Vendors and Software Developers Together to Move Forward on Cloud Services Agenda
February 24, 2011, Washington, DC — Representatives of major telecommunications service providers, network vendors and software developers met in Washington last week for the inaugural meeting of the ATIS Cloud Services Forum (CSF) to address how service providers will leverage core network and service attributes to adopt, advance and deliver Cloud computing services. Drawing heavily on business use cases that demonstrate Cloud services’ potential, the CSF is addressing the top industry priorities central to quickly operationalizing the network capabilities that will enable telecommunications service providers to advance their Cloud services offerings. Attending the Forum meeting were representatives from 17 different companies.
“The Cloud Services Forum is unique in that its focus is on advancing Cloud services based on service provider requirements,” said Susan Miller, ATIS President and CEO. “In the Forum, service providers have articulated their needs for rapidly developing managed service solutions that will deliver Cloud services as a layer in the interconnected carrier environment.”
“The ATIS CSF will help define and expose APIs to enable better interoperability between service provider Clouds,” said John Donovan, AT&T CTO and Chairman of the ATIS Board. “That will help improve security, data integrity and reliability and allow carriers to offer customers the benefits of managed services more quickly.”
In this meeting, the CSF team initiated work central to its mission by discussing, among other topics, use cases set forth by the ATIS Technology and Operations (TOPS) Council Cloud Landscape Team, with a special emphasis on network-to-network interfaces (NNIs). The TOPS Council formed the Cloud Landscape Team in 2010 to provide a thorough assessment of the industry’s needs and role in Cloud computing. At the meeting, CSF also developed a detailed project plan to address service provider requirements and conclusions from the Landscape Team’s report and received commitment from the different parties attending to take the lead on various aspects of its work.
Next steps include addressing: Cloud-based inter-provider tele-presence; access agnostic end-to-end service flow; Cloud services network-network interconnect, to include service definitions and resource requirements; control plane aspects (e.g. QoS, network policy); charging for Cloud services; and service management (e.g. logging, auditing and OSS). CSF has set an aggressive meeting schedule to advance its efforts.
To learn more about the work of the ATIS Cloud Service Forum, visit www.atis.org/cloud/index.asp or contact Yvonne Reigle at yreigle@atis.org.
ATIS is the leading technical planning and standards development organization committed to the rapid development of global, market-driven standards for the information, entertainment and communications industry. More than 200 companies actively formulate standards in ATIS’ 17 Committees, covering issues including: IPTV, Cloud Services, Energy Efficiency, IP-Based and Wireless Technologies, Quality of Service, Billing and Operational Support, Emergency Services, Architectural Platforms and Emerging Networks. In addition, numerous Incubators, Focus and Exploratory Groups address evolving industry priorities including Smart Grid, Machine-to-Machine, Networked Car, IP Downloadable Security, Policy Management and Network Optimization.
ATIS is the North American Organizational Partner for the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a member and major U.S. contributor to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Radio and Telecommunications’ Sectors, and a member of the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL). For more information, please visit www.atis.org.
