SCIENCE

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will unveil the public draft of its U.S. Government Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap at the Cloud Computing Forum & Workshop IV that it will host Nov. 2-4, in Gaithersburg, Md.

The meeting also will feature an update on NIST’s progress in helping to develop open standards to enable interoperability, portability and security in cloud computing.

Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service-provider interaction.

NIST’s role in cloud computing is to help accelerate the secure and effective adoption of cloud computing. The agency leads efforts to develop standards and guidelines and advance cloud computing technology in collaboration with standards bodies, businesses and other private-sector organizations, government agencies and other stakeholders. Many of these stakeholders participate in NIST-led cloud-computing working groups that convene throughout the year.
The focus of the meeting will be the three-volume draft roadmap intended for use by all U.S. government (USG) agencies. There also will be briefings on two other NIST documents that were completed this summer to provide guidance on understanding cloud computing standards and categories of cloud services that can be used government-wide. These are the NIST Cloud Computing Standards Roadmap (NIST Special Publication 500-291) and the NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture (NIST SP 500-292).

The U.S. Chief Information Officer, Steve Van Roekel and Patrick Gallagher, NIST Director and Commerce Department Under Secretary for Standards and Technology, will deliver opening remarks. Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, will chair a panel discussion.

Panel sessions will explore a variety of topics and issues influencing the evolution of cloud computing, including infrastructure, security, standards, international perspectives, and opportunities for collaboration.

During the first two days of the meeting, which will be held at NIST, government, industrial, academic and standards organizations will showcase real-world cloud-computing collaborations.

The final day of the event, which will be held at the Crown Plaza Hotel, in Rockville, Md., will feature three tracks: U.S. Government Business Use Cases; Using the Reference Architecture and Taxonomy; and Reviewing the Roadmap Security Requirements List in the Context of the Security Working Group and U.S. Government Security Examples.

For more information on the Cloud Computing Forum and Workshop IV, including the agenda and registration, see http://www.nist.gov/itl/cloud/cloudworkshopiv.cfm.