Cloud Industry Forum and Data Centre Alliance form partnership

The Cloud Industry Forum (CIF), the body established to promote trust, security and transparency within the sector, has signed a formal Partnership Agreement with the Data Centre Alliance (DCA), the not-for-profit industry association comprising of experts from across the data centre sector.

Under the terms of the agreement both organisations will establish a reciprocal, non-exclusive alliance partnership to encourage best practice within the Cloud Service Provider sector, as well as educating end user organisations on all cloud computing issues.

The DCA is an industry association comprising of a number of key experts in the data centre industry, be that as an individual or a commercial organisation. The DCA itself represents the industry to the business community, the media, government and the general public.

Simon Campbell-Whyte, Executive Director, DCA, said: “The wide spread adoption of cloud computing has highlighted the need for a common standard that ensures transparency, capability and accountability amongst both cloud service providers and data centres – secure and efficient cloud infrastructures depend on an approach that addresses every layer. We believe that our collaboration with CIF and its Code of Practice will really bring these into play and will contribute heavily to the development of a credible and thriving IT industry.”

Alex Hilton, CEO of CIF commented: “The DCA is a well established industry association not only here in the UK but increasingly across all member states of the EU, and in recent years has played an integral role in evolving the data centre industry to where it is today. Its members work together across a variety of product and service sectors to develop and improve the data centre sector’s adoption of best practices and standards that are needed to underpin the future of cloud computing.
“In partnership, we will strive to expand the Code of Practice’s market reach and continue to educate and champion the cloud to drive transparency across the industry.”

“The data centre is increasingly being seen as a critical component in the cloud “stack” in terms of resiliency, security, governance and cost base. This important new partnership between the Cloud Industry Forum and the Data Centre Alliance reflects the convergence towards XaaS (“everything-as-a-service”) and represents a significant step forward in the evolution of the digital infrastructure industry,” added Professor Dennis F Kehoe, CEO AIMES Grid Services Ltd and DCA Board Member.
The partnership will see a number of initiatives between the two organisations including collaboration in the key areas of lobbying and market education, the development and sharing of joint research findings and the promotion of mutual membership.