Thank you everyone for your feedback. Check out all the posts at ( http://groups.google.com/group/cloud-computing-use-cases ). In my initial post, I included items 1 thru 8. As you can see, the list has expanded to 17 potential topics / sub-topics for consideration. The next step is to assess the topics and determine which ones can be combined as well as to begin to expand each of the topic. The goal is to develop a paper which provides decision makers with the content to be able to make better decisions when "Moving to the Cloud". Suggestions for the content of V5 of the paper are as follows : 1 – Sources of workload + Datamining + Internal applications – such a payroll + Managing customer data – Medical records + Identity and Security + Websites - Either static ( product Catalogues, etc. ) or interactive ( Order Entry ) + Batch processing (time-insensitive stuff; like the entire story around genetics DB analysis, workflow-like workloads, Hadoop-like workloads), etc. 2 – Cloud types + Alignment to requirements – drives level of security needed + Mapping Cloud requirements to security, availability, accessibility, etc. 3 – Regulatory considerations + HIPAA, SOX, HIPPA, GLBA, Patriot ACT, ( examples and I am sure that are complementary examples from countries around the world ) + PIV-I, National IDs, etc + Industry Standards Organizations standards – ISO, etc. + Industry orgs such as agxml.org to reflect industry specific requirments + PCI for financial institutions, and the equivalent for the other countries + Location of data aligns with government requirements 4 – Types of use of the Cloud + Development of new applications + Testing of new applications and existing applications + Production running of existing applications (Consider migration; for example it requires true IaaS - PaaS alone may not be sufficent) 5 – Availability / Reliability of a Cloud environment + Ties back to the Service Level Agreements (see SLA section in V4 of the White Paper ) 6 – Portability of applications + From the IT environment to Cloud provider + From Cloud Provider A to Cloud Provider B + From the Cloud Provider to the IT environment + One of our members raised the point that portability may not be important, your thoughts? 7 – Workload volumes / Performance + Understanding the volumes of data to be transferred / accessed + User traffic + Vertical scaling versus horizontal scaling ( Look at legacy apps ) + Workload Optimization - how we can dynamically assess and optimize the resourcing and placement of workloads. 8 – Disaster recovery + Is the Cloud an alternative for disaster recovery? + If the Cloud Provider fails, what are the considerations? 9 - Migration Modes + Accessibility of data ( Must consider issues of data Synchronization and cross-site trusts) 10 - Development and Testing of services + Use a cloud environment to offload main site workload 11 - Business Cases / Business Models + Where is my market? + Which aspects are important to my customers? + Benefits of Cloud Computing compared to on-premise installations, etc. 12 - Common authentication, authorization and audit processing for an application + There was a question on Federated Identity - Which is best to follow, SAML or OpenID? 13 - Privacy 14 - Security + See V4 of the Cloud Computing Use Cases White Paper 15 - Service Level Agreements + See V4 of the Cloud Computing Use Cases White Paper 16 - Identity assurance of those authenticating to cloud resources + Trusted identify provisions + Ties back to portability 17 - Data Migration considerations as part of Governance + What is the format in which the data will be stored + Will the choice lock the consumer into the provider's format + What is the ability to migrate to another provider + Is there any migration support available, should the consumer choose to move their services from one provider to another These are an initial set of thoughts for topics which may become part of the Moving to the Cloud version of the Cloud Computing Use Cases White Paper. Once we have received feedback on the topics, plus added in the new topics for consideration, work will begin on developing the paper at .http://groups.google.com/group/cloud-computing-use-cases . The input to date has been very positive and I look forward to seeing the "Moving to the Cloud" paper evolve thru using the Open Community process. Please post your comments either on this site or the Cloud Computing Use Cases discussion group site. Thanks very much Dave