CA, IBM, Kaavo, Rackspace and Software AG are Founding Sponsors of CSCC

NEEDHAM, Mass., April 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- OMG® today announced the formation of the Cloud Standards Customer Council (CSCC). OMG is also announcing that CA, IBM, Kaavo, Rackspace and Software AG have joined the CSCC as Founding Sponsors. The Cloud Standards Customer Council is an end user advocacy group dedicated to accelerating cloud's successful adoption, and drilling down into the standards, security and interoperability issues surrounding the transition to the cloud. For more information on the CSCC, visit http://www.cloud-council.org/.

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More than 45 of the world's leading organizations including Lockheed Martin, Citigroup and North Carolina State University have already joined the Cloud Standards Customer Council. The Council will provide cloud users with the opportunity to drive client requirements into standards development organizations and deliver materials such as best practices and use cases to assist other enterprises.

The Council will complement existing cloud standards efforts and establish a core set of client-driven requirements to ensure cloud users will have the same freedom of choice, flexibility, and openness they have with traditional IT environments. The Cloud Standards Customer Council is open to all end-user organizations. The group will work to lower the barriers for widespread adoption of Cloud Computing by helping to prioritize key Interoperability issues such as cloud management, reference architecture, hybrid clouds, as well as security and compliance issues.

The Cloud Standards Customer Council will:

• Drive customer requirements into the development process to gain acceptance by the Global 2000
• Deliver customer-focused content in the form of best practices, patterns, case studies, use cases, and standards roadmaps.
• Influence the standards development process for new cloud standards.
• Facilitate the exchange of real-world stories, practices, lessons and insights.

"End users confront the challenges of implementing cloud on a daily basis. The Cloud Standards Customer Council will bring together these cloud veterans into a community where they can discover and disseminate best practices for moving to and managing the cloud and help to drive standards across industry, both to end-users and vendors to bring down costs and increase choice," said Richard Mark Soley, Ph.D., chairman & CEO, OMG.

"To make Open Cloud successful and reflective of real business needs, IBM is asking for client feedback regarding their direction and priorities around cloud standards development," said Angel Diaz, vice president, IBM Software Standards. "This council is designed to focus on the reality of what provides the greatest cloud computing benefits for clients. Ultimately, this effort is about how organizations can use what they have today and extend their business - using open standards - to get the greatest benefits from cloud."

"We are thrilled to work with the Cloud Standards Customer Council and leading global organizations to help drive customer requirements into the development of industry standards for cloud computing," said Jamal Mazhar, Founder and CEO of Kaavo. "With perspective from the changing cloud landscape and by collaborating with CSCC, we can help shape best practices that result in real-world value for thousands of companies."

"Rackspace is always working to create new ways to gain customers feedback so we can provide fanatical support. The cloud standards customer council provides us a venue to follow customers leads on the open cloud," said Mark Interrante, Vice President Cloud Products, Rackspace.

Membership is free for qualified end-user organizations. The membership application is available at http://www.cloud-council.org/application. Vendors may join as sponsors. For membership or sponsorship questions, contact Ken Berk at ken.berk@omg.org or +1-781-444-0404.

About OMG

OMG^® is an international, open membership, not-for-profit computer industry consortium helping IT end-users and vendors agree on best practices, standards & business-technology integration worldwide. OMG's Communities of Interest feature ongoing discussions of management & business best practices in many areas; OMG Task Forces develop enterprise integration standards for a wide range of technologies and an even wider range of industries. For more information, visit www.omg.org.

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SOURCE OMG (Object Management Group)