cloud service [English]

Other Languages

Syndetic Relationships

InterPARES Definition

n. ~ Functionality offered by a cloud provider that supports infrastructure, platform, software, or other services.

General Notes

A cloud service may be implemented using a public, private, hybrid, or community model.

Citations

  • Gens 2008 (†582 ): Surveying the wide range of cloud offerings, here are eight attributes that...define the new generation of commercial cloud services, and provide the basis for those benefits: offsite [and] provided by third-party provider, accessed via the internet, minimal/no IT skills to "implement," provisioning, pricing, user interface, system interface, and shared resources/common versions. These attributes, together, make business and consumer cloud services easier and cheaper - and often better - to consume than through traditional delivery modes. These attributes lower costs (for customers and suppliers), speed and simplify access, speed and fine-tune provisioning (in line with true demand/usage), greatly increase the number and variety of available services (thanks to lower development and deployment costs and standards), and improve the potential to integrate. (†1147)
  • McLelland, et al. 2014 (†403 8-9): Although the term “the cloud” appears straightforward, the reality is that it is a single term used to describe a multitude of different services and technologies. A cloud may be implemented for a client in any of four different ways [public, private, hybrid, community]. [...] In general, the cloud service industry offers four types of services - Infrastructure as a Service, Software as a Service, Platform as a Service and, less commonly, Data as a Service. [...] These four types of clouds and four different services can be implemented in any number of combinations, for example software being provided in cloud-based platforms through rented infrastructure. (†465)
  • Reidenberg, et al. 2013 (†364 ): · 95% of [K-12 school] districts rely on cloud services for a diverse range of functions including data mining related to student performance, support for classroom activities, student guidance, data hosting, as well as special services such as cafeteria payments and transportation planning. · Cloud services are poorly understood, non-transparent, and weakly governed: only 25% of districts inform parents of their use of cloud services, 20% of districts fail to have policies governing the use of online services, and a sizeable plurality of districts have rampant gaps in their contract documentation, including missing privacy policies. · Districts frequently surrender control of student information when using cloud services: fewer than 25% of the agreements specify the purpose for disclosures of student information, fewer than 7% of the contracts restrict the sale or marketing of student information by vendors, and many agreements allow vendors to change the terms (†361)
  • Shan 2009 (†435 ): The fundamental question is how the cloud services can be logically organized from a capability perspective . . . A structured way is needed to provide a taxonomy to classify a variety of XaaS offerings, which extends the traditional SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS areas. Here is a dome model for cloud services (click image to enlarge). It provides a more granular classification in a reference stack for different capabilities and functions encapsulated in layers.

    Graphic linked from http://cloudonomic.blogspot.com/2009/02/cloud-taxonomy-and-ontology.html (†566)
  • Wikipedia (†387 s.v. "cloud_computing"): Service models ¶ Cloud computing providers offer their services according to several fundamental models: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and software as a service (SaaS) where IaaS is the most basic and each higher model abstracts from the details of the lower models. Other key components in anything as a service (XaaS) are described in a comprehensive taxonomy model published in 2009,[Tony Shan, "Cloud Taxonomy and Ontology"". February 2009] such as Strategy-as-a-Service, Collaboration-as-a-Service, Business Process-as-a-Service, Database-as-a-Service, etc. In 2012, network as a service (NaaS) and communication as a service (CaaS) were officially included by ITU (International Telecommunication Union) as part of the basic cloud computing models, recognized service categories of a telecommunication-centric cloud ecosystem. (†565)