The SLALOM initiative was launched in January 2015 with the mission to unify the terms and conditions of cloud computing contracts and service level agreements (SLAs).
A number of bodies across Europe, including the Cloud Industry Forum, the European Cloud Partnership and ISO, have worked towards the standardisation of Cloud SLAs and contracts, debating the distribution of responsibilities between the partners and identifying critical issues that should be completed.
SLALOM is aiming to drive forward a legally worded, open and ready to use SLA and contract template that will provide consistent specification for the metrics providers (such as CIF members) to compete on and unify the general responsibilities and liabilities.
Adopters will have peace of mind knowing that their Cloud Service Provider is SLALOM-compliant, and consequently the small print won’t catch them out. This has been one of the driving forces behind the creation of the Cloud Industry Forum and as SLALOM contributor David Bicket of the Cloud Industry Forum put it, “ISO will tell you WHAT. SLALOM will help you with HOW, turning theory into practice”.
Alex Hilton, CEO, Cloud Industry Forum, stated: “We have repeatedly said that uncertainty around legal issues in Cloud computing forms a barrier to adoption through perceived risk and a lack of trust. This is a barrier that has been highlighted time and again in the research we have conducted amongst the end user community. Customers must ask those awkward questions about the rights and obligations of each party and what happens when one of the parties fails to fulfil their contract, and even which jurisdiction would cover which issues of the contract.
“We are therefore delighted to be part of this initiative, being one of the founder members of the SLALOM consortium alongside global service provider Atos, legal firm Bird and Bird, the National Technical University of Athens, and the University of Piraeus. At the Cloud Expo Europe event SLALOM is welcoming contributions to the project as well as others wishing to actively engage in the programme. We would therefore urge Cloud Service Providers, vendors, end users and other stakeholders to do so and take part in this important European-wide initiative,” he concluded.
There will be a presentation on SLALOM in the Cloud Industry Forum theatre at Cloud Expo Europe on Thursday 12 March at 13:15. The handout for this session is available at bit.ly/SLALOMeHandout, and the associated questionnaire is at bit.ly/SLALOMWantsToKnow until 20 March.
The initiative is backed and funded by the European Commission and the first stage is financed through the H2020 programme, running for 18 months with a budget of 700,000 Euros, under grant agreement No 644270.