Innovation & Community Clouds--Part 1: What is a Community Cloud?

In this three part series, I will provide an overview about what community cloud computing is, its benefits, and its disadvantages, and how it applies to real life examples.

We've all heard the term in passing, but, just what is community cloud computing? The NIST defines it as:

"...infrastructure [that] is shared by several organizations and [that] supports a specific community that has shared concerns (e.g., mission, security requirements, policy, and compliance considerations). It may be managed by the organizations or a third party and may exist on premise or off premise."

Put simply, it's a shared service among a group of organizations that have similar needs or regulatory concerns. The shared service can be infrastructure (IaaS), platform (PaaS), or software (SaaS) and can be deployed in a private or hybrid model depending on the requirements and restrictions. These services are subject to the same criteria applied to cloud computing in general: broad network access to elastic pooled resources on-demand (self-service) in a utility based pricing model.

A community cloud can be created within a horizontal, in which a number of similar organizations participate (such as hospitals), or within a vertical, in which related but dissimilar organizations participate (manufacturer, transportation, wholesaler, retailer, end consumer, etc.).

Naturally, in any case where resources are shared among partners, an agreement must necessarily be in place to regulate and manage its usage. In either of the cases above, all participating organizations must agree on the nature of the services (including adherence to the strictest - often regulatory - requirements applicable to the partner organizations), how they will be shared, and on the procurement method for payment purposes.

As an example, the NYSE announced in a recent press release that it had built a cloud computing environment called the "Capital Markets Community Platform" through which they could "...enable customers to easily purchase the computing power required at a given time so they can focus on their core business strategy rather than complex IT infrastructure design and maintenance. It provides direct, on-demand access to the entire NYSE Technologies portfolio of high-performance, low-latency services..." Clearly, the NYSE and its partners and customers are constrained by security and regulatory requirements common to each of them and the service meets the NIST criteria for community cloud computing mentioned above.

In the next post, we will discuss the benefits of community clouds.