Page 23 - Cloud computing: From paradigm to operation

Framework and requirements for cloud computing 1

Annex A

Cloud service categories
(This annex does not form an integral part of this Recommendation | International Standard.)

Annex A describes the possibility of there being additional cloud service categories not yet found in this
Recommendation | International Standard.

Table A.1 – Cloud service categories and cloud capabilities types

Cloud capabilities types
Cloud service categories
Infrastructure Platform Application

Compute as a Service X
Communications as a Service X X
Data Storage as a Service X X X
Infrastructure as a Service X
Network as a Service X X X
Platform as a Service X
Software as a Service X

Table A.1 shows the relationship of the seven cloud service categories and three cloud capabilities types
described in clause 6. An "X" at the intersection of a row and column depicts that the cloud service category,
shown as a row in Table A.1, is of the indicated cloud capabilities type, shown as a column in Table A.1.

A cloud service category that offers processing, storage or networking resources has an "X" in the
Infrastructure column. A cloud service category may offer the capability of deploying, managing and running
customer-created or customer-acquired applications using one or more programming languages and one or
more execution environments supported by the cloud service provider, in which case it has an "X" in the
Platform column. Similarly, a cloud service category may offer the use of an application offered by the cloud
service provider, in which case it will have an "X" in the Application column. Note that a cloud service
category could offer any combination of the three cloud capability types.
The commercial cloud computing market is very dynamic and new cloud services continue to materialize
into new informal cloud service categories. Some examples of such emerging cloud service categories are
included in Table A.2. Many more cloud service categories will continue to emerge as cloud computing
continues to grow.

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