OEMs, ISVs, Tech Suppliers Form Cloud Advisory Council

A consortium of vendors and service providers from across the cloud market have come together to launch the Cloud Advisory Council, a non-profit organization aimed to help develop next-generation cloud architecture.

The council was formed to help provide cloud designers and IT managers with the tools needed to enable computing in the cloud, to strengthen the qualification and integration of cloud solutions and to provide best practices, according to Eli Karpilovski, chairman of the Cloud Advisory Council.

“The Cloud Advisory Council has been established by industry leaders to develop a cloud specification and best practices for building the most efficient cloud infrastructures. This is critical for vendors as well as for the cloud users,” Karpilovski said in a statement. “The Cloud Advisory Council will assist and provide resources for industry and community organizations to better leverage their infrastructure and improve productivity and efficiency.”

The Cloud Advisory Council is comprised of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), strategic technology suppliers, independent software vendors (ISVs), and end-users. Founding members include: AMAX, AMD, Atlantic.Net, Check Point Software, Colfax, DDN, Eucalyptus, Mellanox (News - Alert) Technologies, Nanjing Standard Communication, Nimbula, ProfitBricks, SGI, Sugon, Supermicro and Xeround.

The organization will research new cloud architectures, which will be defined and specified as a basis for next-generation cloud infrastructures. According to Karpilovski, the council’s main objectives are to:

• Define the next generation of cloud architecture;
• Provide open specification for cloud infrastructures;
• Publish best practices for optimizing cloud efficiency and utilization; and
• Enable ease-of-use with comprehensive cloud management and tools.

“AMAX (News - Alert) shares the vision of the Cloud Advisory Council and is dedicated to developing the next generation of cloud architectures in an effort to strengthen the qualification and integration of cloud solutions and give cloud architects and IT managers the tools they need to enable computing in the cloud,” said Jean Shih, president of AMAX. “Our 30 years of award-winning x86 engineering and manufacturing expertise, along with our open architecture approach, affords us maximum flexibility to establish best practices and reference architectures for designing, building and deploying high-quality, cost-effective cloud infrastructures.”

Membership to the council is free. For more information, go to www.cloudadvisorycouncil.com.

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