Earlier this year, the Asia Cloud Computing Association (ACCA) released a Cloud Assessment Tool (CAT) that can be used to benchmark and compare different cloud providers, geared mostly towards the operational performance side of cloud IT service delivery.
An online version is available at the www.asiacloud.org site.
Benchmarking and comparing any IT service delivery or performance is tricky, be it for corporate IT or cloud based service delivery, but the ACCA CAT provides a valuable tool and framework to help companies evaluate not only cloud service providers and offerings, but also data center providers, hosters and online service providers in general.
Short overview of the CAT:
The CAT is is organised into eight performance categories spread over four service tiers, with the performance categories being
The four service tiers are based on the availability or uptime classification system used by the Uptime Institute which defines 4 data center models, referred to as Tiers I-IV. Tier I defines a data center with quite basic
reliability, whereas Tier IV defines a data center having a highly redundant architecture. Level 4 is not necessarily better than Levels 3, 2 or 1, it's more a matter of suitability to IT task or service delivery use case at hand, and whether a particular level is needed by a business unit, an application or Internet service or not.
The service levels:
Using the online CAT, it's then quite easy to grade cloud service providers for a specific project or service delivery, and take out some of the guesswork and uncertainty when choosing a cloud service provider. The CAT can or should of course be used together with other assessment tools for choosing a cloud service provider, for instance in the areas of cost and pricing, APIs, helpdesk and support, references and functionality.
An online version is available at the www.asiacloud.org site.
Benchmarking and comparing any IT service delivery or performance is tricky, be it for corporate IT or cloud based service delivery, but the ACCA CAT provides a valuable tool and framework to help companies evaluate not only cloud service providers and offerings, but also data center providers, hosters and online service providers in general.
Short overview of the CAT:
The CAT is is organised into eight performance categories spread over four service tiers, with the performance categories being
- Security: Privacy, information security, regulatory
- Life Cycle: Long-term support impacting customer business processes
- Performance: Runtime behavior of deployed application software
- Access: Connectivity between the end user and cloud service provider
- Data Center: Data Center physical infrastructure
- Certification: Degree of quality assurance to the customer
- Support: Deployment and maintenance of applications
- Interoperability: Cloud hypervisor interfaces to applications
The four service tiers are based on the availability or uptime classification system used by the Uptime Institute which defines 4 data center models, referred to as Tiers I-IV. Tier I defines a data center with quite basic
reliability, whereas Tier IV defines a data center having a highly redundant architecture. Level 4 is not necessarily better than Levels 3, 2 or 1, it's more a matter of suitability to IT task or service delivery use case at hand, and whether a particular level is needed by a business unit, an application or Internet service or not.
The service levels:
- Level 1 Typical enterprise cloud solution
- Level 2 Stringent application
- Level 3 Telecommunications grade
- Level 4 Beyond telecommunications grade
Using the online CAT, it's then quite easy to grade cloud service providers for a specific project or service delivery, and take out some of the guesswork and uncertainty when choosing a cloud service provider. The CAT can or should of course be used together with other assessment tools for choosing a cloud service provider, for instance in the areas of cost and pricing, APIs, helpdesk and support, references and functionality.
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