The Path to Cloud Federation through Standardization

This paper describes the efforts of the NIST Cloud Computing Program in the development of understanding the federated cloud concept through the creation of a reference architecture, cooperation with the IEEE and resulting in the publication IEEE 2302–2021 Standard for Intercloud Interoperability and Federation (SIIF). Standards for cloud federation continue to show their growing importance due to the fact that cloud federation standards, mechanisms/techniques such as APIs, are the enablers for ICT assets and resource sharing by diverse stakeholders who can immensely benefit from the federations in creating new business models and even to test complex technologies and scenarios that can only be achieved through distributed and federated ICT assets. The growing industry requirement on Testbeds Federations benefits from Cloud Federation Standards and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) a lot when Testbeds are implemented as Clouds, hence the recent creation of an ITU-T Focus Group on Testbeds Federations for IMT-2020 and Beyond (FG-TBFxG) under the parent ITU-T SG11 on Testing related topics is bound to benefit a lot from IEEE Cloud Federation Standards and APIs in its envisaged deliverables.