NIST Special Publication 500-293: US Government Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap

Special Publication 500-293
US Government Cloud Computing
Technology Roadmap
Volume I
High-Priority Requirements to
Further USG Agency Cloud
Computing Adoption
Lee Badger, David Bernstein, Robert Bohn, Frederic de Vaulx, Mike Hogan, Michaela
Iorga, Jian Mao, John Messina, Kevin Mills, Eric Simmon, Annie Sokol, Jin Tong, Fred
Whiteside and Dawn Leaf
This publication is available free of charge from:
http://dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.500-293

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U.S. Department of Commerce
Penny Pritzker, Secretary
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Willie May, Acting Under Secretary for Standards and Technology and Acting Director
NIST Special Publication 500-293 US Government Cloud Computing Technology
Roadmap Volume I
High-Priority Requirements to Further USG Agency
Cloud Computing Adoption
Lee Badger, David Bernstein, Robert Bohn, Frederic de
Vaulx, Mike Hogan, Michaela Iorga, Jian Mao, John
Messina, Kevin Mills, Eric Simmon, Annie Sokol, Jin
Tong, Fred Whiteside and Dawn Leaf
Cloud Computing Program
Information Technology Laboratory
Gaithersburg, MD 20899
http:dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.500-293
October 2014

US Government Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap Volume I
Reports on Computer Systems Technology
The Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) at the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) promotes the U.S. economy and public welfare by providing technical
leadership for the nation’s measurement and standards infrastructure. ITL develops tests, test
methods, reference data, proof of concept implementations, and technical analysis to advance the
development and productive use of information technology. This Special Publication 500-series
reports on ITL’s research, guidance, and outreach efforts in Information Technology and its
collaborative activities with industry, government, and academic organizations.
National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 500-293
Natl. Inst. Stand. Technol. Spec. Publ. 500-293, 40 pages (October 2014)
Certain commercial entities, equipment, or materials may be identified in this
document in order to describe an experimental procedure or concept adequately.
Such identification is not intended to imply recommendation or endorsement by
the National Institute of Standards and Technology, nor is it intended to imply that
the entities, materials, or equipment are necessarily the best available for the
purpose.

US Government Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap, Volume I
iii

iv
Acknowledgments
The authors, David Bernstein, Jian Mao, and Jin Tong, of Knowcean Consulting Incorporated
(under contract through the Federal Integrated Product Team, Space & Naval Warfare
[SPAWAR] Systems Center Atlantic), Frederic de Vaulx of Prometheus Computing LLC (under
contract), Fred Whiteside of the Department of Commerce, and Lee Badger, Robert Bohn, Mike
Hogan, Michaela Iorga, John Messina, Kevin Mills, Eric Simmon, Annie Sokol, and Dawn Leaf
of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), gratefully acknowledge and
appreciate the broad contributions from members of the NIST Cloud Computing US
Government Target Business Use Case, Reference Architecture and Taxonomy, Standards
Acceleration to Jumpstart the Adoption of Cloud Computing (SAJACC), Security, and Standards
working groups.
We especially acknowledge Lisa Carnahan, Romayne Hines, Mary Saunders, Terry
Schwarzhoff, and James St. Pierre of NIST for providing editorial review and support.
We especially acknowledge Earl Crane, of the Department of Homeland Security and
Information Security and Identity Management Committee (ISIMC), whose advice and technical
insight assisted this effort.
We also wish to acknowledge the members of the Federal Cloud Computing Standards and
Technology Working Group and other interagency contributors, listed in Appendix A of this
document.

v

vi
Table of Contents
Executive Summary.................................................................................................................ix
1 Purpose and Scope.......................................................................................................... 1
1.1 USG Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap Purpose.................................................. 1
1.2 Intended Audience and Use.............................................................................................. 1
1.3 Document Organization ................................................................................................... 2
2 USG Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap Requirements ...................................... 4
2.1 Requirement 1: International Voluntary Consensus-Based Standards .............................. 5
2.2 Requirement 2: Solutions for High-priority Security Requirements which are technically
de-coupled from organizational policy decisions ............................................................ 6
2.3 Requirement 3: Technical Specifications to Enable development of Service-Level
Agreements ...................................................................................................................... 7
2.4 Requirement 4: Clear & Consistently Categorized Cloud Services................................ 8
2.5 Requirement 5: Frameworks to Support Federated Community Clouds........................ 9
2.6 Requirement 6: Updated Organization Policy that reflects the Cloud Computing Business
and Technology model................................................................................................... 10
2.7 Requirement 7: Defined Unique Government Requirements and Solutions.................... 12
2.8 Requirement 8: Collaborative Parallel “future cloud” Development Initiatives .............. 13
2.9 Requirement 9: Defined & Implemented Reliability Design Goals ................................. 14
2.10 Requirement 10: Defined & implemented Cloud Service Metrics.................................. 15
3 Other Considerations and Observations.......................................................................16
3.1 Regarding Academia, Industry, Standards Organizations, and Government Collaboration
........................................................................................................................................ 16
3.2 Interdependency with Cyber Security initiatives............................................................... 17
3.3 Interdependency with emerging Big Data technology ...................................................... 17
3.4 Organizational Policy ........................................................................................................ 18
3.5 Interdependency with Other National Priority Initiatives.................................................. 18
3.6 Education of Technical Staff and Cloud Consumers......................................................... 19
4. Progress and Next Steps................................................................................................21

vii
4.1 NIST Cloud Computing Program Future Phases ........................................................... 23
4.2 Summary of Time Line and Deliverables.......................................................................... 26

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ix
Executive Summary
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), consistent with its mission,1
has a
technology leadership role in support of United States Government (USG) secure and effective adoption
of the Cloud Computing model2
to reduce costs and improve services. This role is described in the 2011
Federal Cloud Computing Strategy3
as “... a central one in defining and advancing standards, and
collaborating with USG Agency CIOs, private sector experts, and international bodies to identify and
reach consensus on cloud computing technology & standardization priorities.”
This NIST Cloud Computing program and initiative to develop a USG Cloud Computing
Technology Roadmap is one of several complementary and parallel USG initiatives defined in the
broader Federal Cloud Computing Strategy referenced above.
The Federal Cloud Computing Strategy characterizes cloud computing as a “profound economic and
technical shift (with) great potential to reduce the cost of federal Information Technology (IT) systems
while … improving IT capabilities and stimulating innovation in IT solutions.”
In the technology vision of Federal Cloud Computing Strategy success, USG agencies will be able to
easily locate desired IT services in a mature and competitive marketplace, rapidly procure access to these
services, and use them to deliver innovative mission solutions. Cloud services will be secure,
interoperable, and reliable. Agencies will be able to switch between providers easily and with minimal
cost, and receive equal or superior services.
Decision makers contemplating cloud computing adoption face a number of challenges relating to policy,
technology, guidance, security, and standards. Strategically, there is a need to augment standards and to
establish additional security, interoperability, and portability standards to support the long-term
advancement of the cloud computing technology and its implementation. Cloud computing is still in an
early deployment stage, and standards are crucial to increased adoption. The urgency is driven by rapid
deployment of cloud computing in response to financial incentives. Standards are critical to ensure cost-
effective and easy migration, to ensure that mission-critical requirements can be met, and to reduce the
risk that sizable investments may become prematurely technologically obsolete. Standards are key to
ensuring a level playing field in the global marketplace. 4
Recognizing the significance and breadth of the emerging cloud computing trend, NIST designed its
program to support accelerated US government adoption, as well as leverage the strengths and resources
of government, industry, academia, and standards organization stakeholders to support cloud computing
technology innovation.
1
This effort is consistent with the NIST role per the National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act (NTTAA)
of 1995, which became law in March 1996.
2
NIST Definition of Cloud Computing, Special Publication 800-145, September, 2011.
3
Office of Management and Budget, U.S. Chief Information Officer, Federal Cloud Computing Strategy, Feb. 8,
2011. Online: www.cio.gov/documents/Federal-Cloud-Computing-Strategy.pdf.
4
The roadmap primary focus on interoperability, portability, and security requirements does not preclude the need
to address reliability, maintainability, performance, accessibility and other essential requirements.

x
The basis for the following list of prioritized requirements is the work completed November 2010
through August 2012 as part of the NIST Cloud Computing program and collaborative USG Cloud
Framing the Discussion -- underlying principles and assumptions:
The USG Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap is a mechanism to define,
communicate, and recommend:
 Prioritized strategic and tactical requirements that must be met for USG
agencies to further cloud adoption;
 Interoperability, portability and security standards, guidelines, and
technology that need to be in place to satisfy these requirements; and,
 Candidate Priority Action Plans (PAPs) which are recommended for voluntary
self-tasking by the cloud computing stakeholder community to support
standards, guidelines, and technology development.
Following this executive summary, Volume I intentionally presents each requirement at a
very basic level, and uses illustrative examples to explain in plain language why from at
least one perspective these requirements are not considered to be fully met.
The intent is to lay the groundwork to more directly tackle a subset of cloud computing
technology scope, consistent with the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy to accelerate USG
cloud adoption. This does not imply an intent to prescribe a USG-centric view.
On the contrary, the “roadmap” is intended to foster a substantive discussion among cloud
computing stakeholders in government and the private sector. In practical terms, the
roadmap is a vehicle for NIST to fulfill its collaboration role and leverage input from the
hundreds of organizations and individuals who have contributed to the NIST-led cloud
computing working group analysis and discussions.
The requirements identified in the roadmap are common for the adoption of any emerging
technology. Throughout the November 2010 – August 2012 time frame, NIST sought to
verify the set that are highest priority for USG agencies. Through public comments provided
in response to the draft of this document issued in November, 2011, NIST confirmed that the
roadmap requirements are generally accepted to be priorities. Ideally, the roadmap will
serve as a vehicle to continue to refine the requirements and identify relevant work which is
under way.
Finally, the roadmap initiative is designed to help ensure that NIST’ technical standards,
guidance, and research work is focused on the priorities that are most important, not only
in the view of NIST computer scientists and researchers, but also in the eyes of those who
are building and deploying cloud technology.

xi
Computing Technology Roadmap effort, including disposition of comments received during the
December 2011 public comment period.

xii
The USG Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap requirements which are identified as
high priorities to further USG Cloud Computing Technology Adoption are:
Requirement 1: International voluntary consensus-based standards (interoperability,
performance, portability, and security standards)
Requirement 2: Solutions for High-priority Security Requirements, technically de-coupled
from organizational policy decisions (security standards and technology)
Requirement 3: Technical specifications to enable development of consistent, high-quality
Service-Level Agreements (interoperability, performance, portability, and
security standards and guidance)
Requirement 4: Clearly and consistently categorized cloud services (interoperability and
portability guidance and technology)
Requirement 5: Frameworks to support seamless implementation of federated community
cloud environments (interoperability and portability guidance and
technology)
Requirement 6: Updated Organization Policy that reflects the Cloud Computing Business
and Technology model (security guidance)
Requirement 7: Defined unique government regulatory requirements and solutions
(accessibility, interoperability, performance, portability, and security
technology)
Requirement 8: Collaborative parallel strategic “future cloud” development initiatives
(interoperability, portability, and security technology)
Requirement 9: Defined and implemented reliability design goals (interoperability,
performance, portability, and security technology)
Requirement 10: Defined and implemented cloud service metrics (interoperability,
performance, and portability standards)
Note: The order in which the requirements are listed does not imply relative importance.

xiii
These requirements as stated reflect refinement of the November 2011 draft version of this document.
Specifically Requirements 2 and 6 have been modified. Requirement 2 now combines two aspects of
solutions for high priority security requirements: the solutions must satisfy the USG identified
requirements AND must be de-coupled from organizational policy decisions. Requirement 6 has been
modified to separately and more clearly acknowledge the need for updated policy guidance that responds
to the changes associated with the cloud computing business and technology model. Requirement 8 has
been assessed to be an immature future requirement, and some argue not currently essential to further
USG Cloud Computing Technology Adoption. Requirement 8 is treated as a “placeholder” or “stretch”
requirement.
NIST Cloud Computing program work which supports the definition of these requirements, and the
rationale for the assessment that the requirements are not fully met at present, is summarized in Volume II
of the roadmap document. Volume II5
: 1) describes a conceptual Cloud Computing Reference
Architecture and Taxonomy, 2) presents USG Business Use Cases and technical cloud use cases, 3)
identifies existing applicable standards and guidance, 4) specifies high-priority standards, guidance, and
technology gaps, 5) summarizes work completed in the area of Service Level Agreements, and 6)
provides insight into the rationale for the list of action plans which are recommended for voluntary self-
tasking by government and private sector organizations.
The content of this document was developed by leveraging an open public process that engaged the broad
spectrum of Cloud Computing stakeholder communities and the general public. Input to date has been
provided through five public workshops held in May and November 2010, April and November 2011, and
June 2012. More than 1,500 individuals representing hundreds of organizations participated in these
events. NIST also consulted with stakeholders through extensive outreach efforts, including, five public
working groups formed in November 2010, and the Federal Cloud Computing Standards and Technology
Working Group. The latter body was formed under the auspices of the US Federal CIO Council to
represent common US government interests. This report has been subjected to a 30-day public review and
comment period. All comments received have been carefully reviewed and resolutions are incorporated in
preparation of the final version of this report.
5
Updates to the November 2011 version of Volume II include reference architecture broker and security
architecture elements, a new service level agreement section, and an updated standards assessment and summary.

1
1 Purpose and Scope
1.1 USG Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap Purpose
The collaborative NIST initiative to develop a USG Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap and the
resulting multi-volume interagency NIST SP 500-293 document is designed to:
 Foster adoption of cloud computing by federal agencies and support the private sector;
 Reduce uncertainty by improving the information available to decision makers; and,
 Facilitate further development of the cloud computing model.
This document is intended to serve as:
 A vehicle to define and communicate high-priority strategic and tactical security, interoperability, and
portability requirements; these must be met for USG agencies to further adopt the cloud computing
model to meet the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy goals;
 A vehicle to define and communicate the relevant standards, guidance, and technology that must be in
place to satisfy these requirements;
 A vehicle to define and communicate a list of candidate Priority Action Plans (PAPs) to be developed
to support develop standards, guidance, and technology;
 The mechanism to integrate and present analysis, findings, and useful technical artifacts generated
through the NIST Cloud Computing program public working groups, internal NIST Cloud
Computing and related projects, and the NIST chaired Federal Cloud Computing Standards and
Technology Working Group, along with referenced related and complementary work that was
reviewed and considered in the roadmap generation process;
 The mechanism to focus discussion on the proposed “technology roadmap” steps to move federal IT
from its current early-cloud state ("point A") to a cloud-based foundation ("point B") and to fully
execute the US Federal Cloud Computing Strategy); and
 The basis to assess and plan the NIST Cloud Computing program and the Federal Cloud Computing
Standards and Technology Working Group efforts going forward.
1.2 Intended Audience and Use
This publication is intended for a diverse audience:
 US Policy Makers, US Federal CIO Council, and those with key roles identified in the Federal
Cloud Computing Strategy – as a technology-oriented reference to inform policy and planning;
 USG Agencies – as a tool in the context of the USG Federal Cloud Computing Strategy risk-based
management “Decision Framework for Cloud Migration”; and
 Cloud Computing Stakeholders (Academia, Government, Industry, Standards Developing
Organizations) – as a consolidated presentation of USG cloud computing technology perspectives,
including a list of candidate Priority Action Plans which are recommended for voluntary self-tasking
and which present opportunities to leverage stakeholder efforts to further cloud computing.

2
1.3 Document Organization
The US Government Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap is anticipated to evolve and be updated
periodically.
This release of this document consists of three volumes. Consistent with the NIST Cloud Computing
program strategy, the roadmap focuses on both strategic and tactical objectives related to cloud
computing. The roadmap strategic elements can be characterized as “high-priority technical areas” which
are enablers for cloud computing in both the short and long term.
Volume I, High-Priority Requirements to Further USG Agency Cloud Computing Adoption, frames the
discussion and introduces the roadmap in terms of:
 Prioritized strategic and tactical requirements that must be met for USG agencies to further cloud
adoption;
 Interoperability, portability, and security standards, guidelines, and technology that must be in place
to satisfy these requirements; and
 Recommended list of Priority Action Plans (PAPs) as candidates for development and
implementation, through voluntary self-tasking by the cloud computing stakeholder community, to
support standards, guidelines, and technology development.
Volume I is aimed at interested parties who wish to gain a general understanding and overview of the
background, purpose, context, work, results, and next steps of the USG Cloud Computing Technology
Roadmap initiative. Volume I reflects the collective inputs of USG agencies through the Federal CIO
Council-sponsored Cloud Computing Standards and Technology Working Group.
The remainder of Volume I is organized into several sections. Section 2 presents the USG Cloud
Computing Technology Roadmap requirements. Section 3 presents other considerations which are related
to, but out of the scope of, the roadmap initiative and document. Section 4 identifies the Next Steps, as
currently planned for the NIST Cloud Computing program and its collaborative USG Cloud Computing
Technology Roadmap initiative.
Volume II, Useful Information for Cloud Adopters, is designed to be a technical reference for those
actively working on strategic and tactical cloud computing initiatives, including, but not limited to, US
government cloud adopters. Volume II integrates and summarizes the work completed to date, and
explains how these findings support the roadmap introduced in Volume I.
Volume III, Technical Considerations for USG Cloud Computing Deployment Decisions, is released as a
draft volume. Volume III was developed with input from US Federal agencies and the Federal Cloud
Computing Standards and Technology Working Group. Volume III is intended to serve as a guide for
decision makers who are planning and implementing cloud computing solutions by explaining how the
technical work and resources in Volume II can be applied, consistent with the Federal Cloud Computing
Strategy “Decision Framework for Cloud Migration.” The current draft version defines and proposes a
methodology and process, and proof-of-concept examples. Volume III was initiated in parallel, but is
logically dependent on the technical work contained in Volume II, and therefore is a less mature part of
the roadmap. Consistent with the precedent established in November 2011 for volumes I & II, the initial
Volume III draft special publication is released for a 30-day public comment period.

3
All of these documents are publically available through the NIST ITL Cloud Computing Web site, as are
all of the NIST Cloud Computing special publications and work-in-progress documents. See
http://www.nist.gov/itl/cloud/index.cfm.

4
2 USG Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap
Requirements
The requirements discussed in this section of the USG Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap are those
which have been identified as high-priority strategic and tactical security, interoperability, portability,
performance and related requirements that must be met for USG agencies to further adopt the cloud
computing model to meet the objectives of the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy.
Throughout the November 2010 – August 2012 time frame, the NIST Cloud Computing program has
sought to analyze, assess, and verify the set of requirements that are of highest priority for USG agencies.
The analysis, assessment, and verification took several forms. This included the public academic,
government, industry, and standards developing organization collaborative public working group and
outreach activities described earlier. The analysis, assessment, and verification also included the
objective, technical research and development activities, internal and collaborative, that are described and
referenced in Volume II: Useful Information for Cloud Adopters.
Confirmation also included two 60-day review exercises through the Federal Cloud Computing
Standards and Technology Working Group. This group includes representatives from approximately 30
U.S. government agencies. This review was deemed essential to ensure that the priorities reflect the
viewpoint of those in the government who are directly responsible for ensuring that Information
Technology resources are applied effectively and securely to support USG agency missions.
The descriptions of each requirement provide an explicit link between:
 Prioritized strategic and tactical requirements that must be met for USG agencies to further cloud
adoption;
 Interoperability, portability, and security standards, guidelines, and technology to satisfy these
requirements; and
 Recommended voluntary self-tasking Priority Action Plans (PAPs).
Volume 1 is designed to help ensure that NIST technical standards, guidance, and research work is
focused on the priorities that are important to those who are deploying cloud technology.
Volume I of the technology roadmap intentionally presents the information related to each requirement at
a very high level, and uses the illustrative examples to explain in plain language why these requirements
are not fully met at present.
The order in which the requirements are listed does not imply relative importance.

5
2.1 Requirement 1: International Voluntary Consensus-Based
Standards 6
Government, industry, and other stakeholders need to define priorities and requirements7
, develop
international voluntary consensus-based interoperability, portability, security, performance, and related
standards, and implement them in products, processes and services.
Why: Standards-based products, processes, and services are essential for USG agencies to ensure that:
a) public investments do not become prematurely technologically obsolete, b) agencies are able to easily
change cloud service providers to flexibly and cost-effectively support their mission, c) agencies can
economically acquire commercial and develop private clouds using standards-based products, processes,
and services, and d) the US government supports a level economic playing field for service providers.
Illustrative example of why this requirement is not considered to be fully met at present:8
While data,
software, and infrastructure components that enable cloud computing (e.g., virtual machines) can be
ported from selected providers to other providers, the process requires interim steps to move the data,
software, and components to a non-cloud platform or conversion from one proprietary format to another.
Rationale: USG agencies have identified mission-related requirements that depend on technical
interoperability, portability, security and other standards. The NIST public Cloud Computing Standards
Working Group identified a small number of emerging standards that respond to requirements which
are unique to cloud computing. The NIST initiated Standards Acceleration to Jumpstart the Adoption of
Cloud Computing project found interoperability, portability, and security use cases to be tightly coupled,
highlighting the need for integrated standards.
Recommended Priority Action Plans
(candidates for voluntary self-tasking by cloud computing community stakeholders)
Proposed
Target Date
Develop international consensus-based standards. 2012-2016
Encourage test tool development to support cloud standards development. 2012-2015
Encourage standards conformity assessment practices (e.g. conformance and
performance testing, test result validation, tester accreditation) through procurement.
2012-2013
Develop mutual recognition arrangements, to facilitate voluntary sharing and
recognition of test results, so that test reports (first, second, or third party) can be used
widely by providers to compete in global markets.
2013-2014
Develop additional technical use cases focusing on multi-cloud scenarios. 2013-2014
6
"Legislation, policy, and treaty obligations guide how the US government engages with the standards system. The
Trade Agreements Act of 1979 and the National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act are two key pieces of
US legislation affecting the use of standards developed in the private sector by Federal agencies. The Office of
Management and Budget Circular A-119 Revised: Federal Participation in the Development and Use of Voluntary
Consensus Standards and in Conformity Assessment Activities establishes policy. These laws and policy require
Federal agencies to use international, voluntary consensus standards in procurement and regulatory activities... "
7
NIST SP 500-291 Version 2, NIST Cloud Computing Standards Roadmap, Chapter 9, USG Priorities to fill Cloud
Computing Standards Gaps
8
NIST SP 500-291 Version 2, NIST Cloud Computing Standards Roadmap, Section 6.4, Cloud Computing
Standards for Interoperability and Portability

6
2.2 Requirement 2: Solutions for High-priority Security
Requirements which are technically de-coupled from organizational
policy decisions
There are two aspects of this requirement. Solutions need to be defined to address USG security
requirements9
. Equally important, industry needs to develop technical solutions which are abstracted from
(and therefore able to support) diverse sovereign, legal, business, or other authoritative policy rules.
Why: Federal decision makers need more transparent and effectively demonstrated cloud services’
security to inspire confidence to a degree where security is not perceived to be an impediment, and to
support risk-based management decisions to migrate additional IT services to the cloud model.
Traditionally, IT security has relied on logical and physical system boundaries. The inherent
characteristics of Cloud Computing make these boundaries more complex and render traditional security
mechanisms less effective. Moreover, the ability to bridge policy differences and policy evolution is
essential. Mechanisms must be developed to allow differing policies to co-exist and be implemented with
a high degree of confidence, irrespective of geographical location and sovereignty. De-coupling the
technical implementation of cloud security controls from the policy of their application will foster cloud
adoption because consumers will be able to agree on defined security controls and the methods for their
assessment, without having to agree on when it is appropriate to apply them.
Illustrative example of why this requirement is not considered to be fully met at present: While cloud
computing security requirements are not separate from general IT security or unique in their entirety, the
cloud computing environment presents unique security challenges. Security controls need to be
reexamined in the context of cloud architecture, scale, reliance on networking, outsourcing, and shared
resources. For example, multi-tenancy is an inherent cloud characteristic that intuitively raises concern
that one consumer may impact the operations or access data of other tenants running on the same cloud.
Rationale: This assessment is based on Security Requirements identified by public working groups and
USG forums, including the Federal Cloud Computing Standards and Technology Working Group,
Information Security and Identity Management Committee, Federal Risk and Authorization Management
Program, and private sector publications. A related example that illustrates the need to decouple
technical solutions from policy is the September 2012 EC announcement of plans to develop a legal
framework that ensures that EU data protection standards will be applied for EU consumers regardless
of where the data or service provider is based, and a broader cloud computing related regulatory and
legislative environment.
Proposed
Target Date
Continue to identify Cloud Consumer Priority Security Requirements. quarterly
Identify and assess the extent to which risk can be mitigated through existing and
emerging security controls and guidance.
periodically
Identify gaps and modify existing controls and monitoring capabilities periodically
Develop neutral cloud security profiles, technical security attributes, and test criteria . 2012 – 2014
Define an international standards-based conformity assessment system approach. 2013 – 2014
9
“Security Requirements” refers to the high-priority USG security requirements, summarized in Volume II of the
November 2011 draft version of this document.

7
2.3 Requirement 3: Technical Specifications to Enable development
of Service-Level Agreements
Industry and government need to develop and adopt consistent technical specifications, of high quality
and completeness, to enable the creation and practical evaluation of Service-Level Agreements (SLAs)
between customers and cloud providers.
Why: Cloud SLAs specify the services that will be provided to a consumer, and represent part of a
negotiated service contract between two parties. This requirement must be met to: a) ensure that key
cloud service elements (warranties, guarantees, reliability and performance) are defined and
enforceable, b) develop common SLA terms and definitions and avoid misunderstandings between
parties, and c) create an environment which allows consumers to objectively compare services.
In utility industries, the notion of units of measurement is fundamental to buying and selling service. This
contrasts with the traditional approach in computing operations to benchmark performance of system
components such as hardware, operating systems, database and Web servers. Cloud computing service
delivery uses a utility model; IT resources are supplied as abstracted services, such as Infrastructure or
Platform as a Service. Consumers pay for a metered “quantity” and a "quality" of the service. There is a
need for clear and consistent technical specifications to precisely and predictably specify cloud services.
Illustrative example of why this requirement is not considered to be fully met at present: The concept of
reliability is a key cloud computing element addressed by providers’ SLAs. However, the definition of
what is being measured, and associated guarantees vary widely. Customers are faced with evaluating
SLAs from cloud providers which define reliability using different terms (uptime, resilience, or
availability), cover different resources (servers, HVAC systems, data storage, customer support), cover
different time periods (hours, days, years), and use different guarantees (response time versus resolution
time). SLA and measurement ambiguities leave the customer at risk.
Rationale: In creating a Reference Architecture, the NIST public working group identified cloud SLAs as
an important gap that needs clarification (scope) and refinement (structure). A survey of publicly
available cloud SLAs showed that an industry-wide accepted standard SLA form for cloud services does
not exist. Disparities in cloud providers’ SLAs, and issues related to high-profile cloud failures support
the conclusion that SLAs are inadequate. Government agencies have specific requirements (e.g. FISMA
policy) which require SLA modifications. In 2010 and 2011, the NIST-led public Cloud Computing USG
Target Business Use Case, SAJACC, and Security working groups, and in 2012, the Federal Cloud
Computing Standards and Technology Working Group, independently confirmed this requirement.
Proposed
Target Date
Develop a controlled and standardized vocabulary and set of cloud SLA terms and
definitions.
201210
– update
periodically
Ensure consistent guidance and policy regarding SLA relevant terms and definitions. 2013 – update
periodically
10
N.b. The NIST Cloud Computing Definition, Reference Architecture and Taxonomy referenced above are among
submissions which are currently being worked through international standards bodies.

8
Develop a cloud SLA Taxonomy to ensure the complete specification of key cloud
computing elements that need to appear in an SLA.
2012 – update
periodically
2.4 Requirement 4: Clear & Consistently Categorized Cloud
Services
Industry needs to clearly and consistently categorize cloud services.
Why: This requirement must be met to ensure that: a) customers will understand the intricacies of
different types of cloud services and will be better able to select cloud services suitable to meet their
business objectives, b) customers will be able to objectively evaluate, compare, and select between
products from cloud vendors, and c) providers will have clear guidance where interoperability and
portability must exist within similar categories of cloud services.
Illustrative example of why this requirement is not considered to be fully met at present: The NIST
cloud computing definition has identified three distinct categories of cloud service models: Software as a
Service, Platform as a Service, and Infrastructure as a Service. Currently, consumers must seek to
understand cloud services through a customized and product specific view presented by each service
provider (understandably intended to differentiate products in the marketplace). Moreover, many
vendors seek to establish categories of “cloud” services in addition to the three listed above, however it
is not clear that proposed categories are unique and not already covered in the three primary services
defined to date. Examples of proposed additions include Data as a Service, Network as a Service, Service
as a Service and others. The result is a confusing landscape of possible cloud services that make it
difficult for consumers to compare cloud services from an “apples to apples” perspective.
Rationale: In 2010, a NIST cloud computing reference architecture project team surveyed 11 existing
cloud computing reference models and services proposed by cloud organizations, vendors, and federal
agencies to see if there was any clear industry consensus. Analysis showed a wide disparity. A neutral
common understanding and model is needed by customers in order to clearly and consistently understand
how cloud services compare (i.e., apples to apples.) In November 2010, a NIST-hosted public working
group explored proposed recommendation, and synthesized and leveraged this work through consensus to
define a single neutral reference architecture. The reference architecture and taxonomy focus on the
“what” as opposed to the “how” of implementation, and are not tied to a specific vendor implementation.
In 2011 and 2012, industry participants validated the model by mapping it to their cloud services.
Proposed
Target Date
Encourage adoption of the NIST Reference Architecture by ISO/IEC JTC1, or any
alternate neutral reference architecture through an international consensus-based
standards body. 201211
– 2013
Categorize products using the NIST Reference Architecture12
to provide a consistent
view of cloud services to USG agencies.
2012 – update
periodically
11
In 2012, the NIST reference architecture was accepted as an expert submission and is being used as a basis for the
standards process.

9
2.5 Requirement 5: Frameworks to Support Federated
Community Clouds
Industry and the USG need to develop frameworks to support seamless implementation of federated
community cloud environments.
Why: In Community Cloud deployment, infrastructure is shared by organizations that have common
interests (e.g., mission, security requirements, and policy). In the case where a Community Cloud
deployment model is not implemented in one (private cloud or public) environment which accommodates
the entire community of interest, there is a need to clearly define and implement mechanisms to support
the governance and processes which enable federation and interoperability between different cloud
service provider environments to form a general or mission-specific federated Community Cloud.
Illustrated Example of why this requirement is not considered to be fully met at present: In the case
of a Community Cloud deployed by a single Cloud Provider, the cloud PaaS layer can be used by
developers to create applications. If developers establish common technical policies and credentials
within that Community Cloud, they can use tools and management systems from different vendors, and
connect applications to others using common PaaS facilities. However, in a federated multi-cloud
environment with diverse cloud implementations and policies, the modules may need manual intervention
to function together. Technical policies, credentials, namespaces, and trust infrastructure must be
harmonized to support a Community Cloud that spans multiple service providers’ physical environments.
Rationale: The importance of the Community cloud was clearly identified in the NIST-hosted Reference
Architecture public working group. The architecture anticipated potential multi-cloud configurations
such as Hybrid cloud or those topologies involving a Cloud Broker. It did not address the generalized
notion of a federated Cloud Community. USG agencies, the National Security Telecommunications
Advisory Committee, and the Open Grid Forum are examples of potential cloud adopters which have
identified this as a high priority. The concept has been developed in earlier IT models such as the
“GRID,” where public and private sector research labs and universities make up a community of High-
Performance Computing scientists. Federation techniques have been applied across GRIDs, data centers,
and countries to create a “multi-GRID community logical GRID.”
Proposed
Target Date
Define federated Community cloud requirements and scenarios. 201213
– 2014
Identify how Hybrid Cloud and Cloud Broker elements described in the cloud
Reference Architecture can be leveraged and harmonized.
2012 – 2013
Present analysis of GRID communities’ applicability to federated cloud communities,
including technology, trust infrastructure, & governance.
2012 - 2013
All stakeholders -- assess Intercloud efforts (e.g., Standards Developing 2012 - 2013
12
NIST Special Publication 500-292, NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture
13
USG agencies have initiated development of federated clouds; these examples are being leveraged in the draft
Volume III of this document which is currently under development.

10
Organizations) for applicability.
2.6 Requirement 6: Updated Organization Policy that reflects the
Cloud Computing Business and Technology model
Organizations need to review, revise, and develop policy in the context of the global business and
technical model enabled by cloud computing and other enabling technologies.
Why: While it may be developed in parallel, clearly defined organization policy is a prerequisite to
security guidance and technical controls. Technology is appropriately used to implement policy, not to
create it. However, if policy is not explicitly defined or does not reflect current and realistic data access
capabilities, for example, the roles become reversed. Technology limits become (inappropriately) the
default creator of policy as opposed an implementation tool. In the case of cloud, updated and
transparent policy, which can be interpreted to a limited set of defined guidance and technical levels is
essential This is necessary and complementary to the development of technical solutions which satisfy
security requirements AND allow differing policies to coexist side by side in a global environment
irrespective of geographical location and sovereignty (requirement 3.) Organizations need to define
policy that recognizes that reliance on the ability to enforce a legal framework and policy through
physical location is insufficient for IT services delivered using the cloud model. In the absence of defined
policy, organizations seek to informally achieve policy objectives through technical standard and product
definitions. A possible end result is one where service providers are driven to artificially differentiate
technological products and standards, resulting in technology stagnation as opposed to innovation. At a
minimum the full potential of technology to foster universal world-wide quality of life improvements and a
level international economic playing field will be stymied.
Illustrative example of why this requirement is not considered to be fully met at present: Historically
differences in organization values, including but not limited to those at the sovereign nation level, related
to such subjects as privacy and the free flow of information have been resolved by relying on physical
data location in the context of geographical borders. In some cases organizations have responded with
updated policy such as that categorized as “safe harbor14
” However, these models rely on point-to-point
agreements and individual organization certifications which are overwhelmed by the volume and
distribution of cloud service providers and global service options, as well as the rapid pace of
technological change driven capabilities. Policies have not been developed which respond to the
“anywhere anytime,” co-tenancy, unplanned demand levels, and utility characteristics of cloud.
Rationale: The TechAmerica Foundation issued recommendations in July 2011 that called for a
“technology-neutral privacy framework…,”“Security and Assurance Frameworks… which are
international...” and “…U.S. government …willingness to trust cloud computing environments in other
countries for appropriate government workloads.” The Business Software Alliance issued a global cloud
readiness assessment in July 2012 that cited policy as a broad inhibitor of cloud adoption.
14
E.g. a) 1998 On-Line Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA) effort to protect service
providers on the Internet from liability for the activities of its users. Codified as section 512 of the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).; b) U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Framework, final documents issued by the United
States and published in the Federal Register on July 24, 2000 and September 19, 2000, and by the European
Commission on July 28, 2000.

11
Proposed
Target Date
Define transparent policies that can be translated to specific levels of cloud computing
security, privacy, and service criteria.
2012 - 2014

12
2.7 Requirement 7: Defined Unique Government Requirements and
Solutions
The federal government needs to identify mandated requirements which are not clearly met in commercial
cloud services, assess the extent to which the requirements are met, and define and communicate the gaps
in technology and service offerings to industry.
Why: In addition to the US federal policy related to cloud services adoption, USG agencies are also
subject to other policy and regulatory requirements which are unique to government agencies.
Government agencies must ensure that cloud services and products meet these policy and compliance
requirements as well satisfy mission functionality requirements. Although agencies use commercial
services to complete key elements of their mission, USG agencies cannot delegate inherently
governmental federal authorities and public trust responsibilities to the private sector. USG institutions
cannot mitigate risk through commercial means (e.g., financial penalties, insurance, litigation) to the
same degree as private sector organizations. Failure to recognize and address government constraints
may slow the adoption of cloud services.
Illustrative example of why this requirement is not considered to be fully met at present: OMB
memo M-11-1115
reaffirmed the importance of the implementation of Homeland Security Presidential
Directive (HSPD)-1216
and the need to move quickly to an authentication and access control mechanism
which is defined and used government-wide. USG agency systems that are not “national security
systems” as defined by 44 U.S.C 3542(b) (2) should be required to use Personal Identification
Verification (PIV) cards as a way of authentication.17
This is an example of a requirement where it is
necessary to identify and address technology gaps in order for USG agencies to authorize use of cloud
services. However, equally important, and often overlooked, the US federal government has
requirements for accessibility18
, which are often not met in commercial cloud service offerings.
Rationale: Target USG Business Use Cases have identified cases where government requirement
constraints can affect the way the services are designed and implemented and introduce the need for
additional features. To expand USG use of cloud computing services, it is necessary to explicitly and
objectively identify requirements not currently met in commercial cloud technologies and services, and to
formulate strategies to supply missing functionality.
Proposed
Target Date
Identify regulatory factors that could affect cloud requirements, those which if unmet
will prevent adoption by USG agencies, and cloud-based system features that satisfy
these regulatory requirements.
2012 – ongoing
Develop technology and products to fill the gaps. 2012 – ongoing
15
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/2011/m11-11.pdf
16
http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/laws/gc_1217616624097.shtm
17
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/fips/fips201-1/FIPS-201-1-chng1.pdf
18
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (29 U.S.C. 794d), as amended by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998
(P.L. 105-220), August 7, 1998....REQUIREMENTS FOR FEDERAL DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES.-- ...
(1) ACCESSIBILITY

13
2.8 Requirement 8: Collaborative Parallel “future cloud”
Development Initiatives
Academia, industry, and the US and international governments need to define and begin work on “future
cloud” development initiatives.
Why: To date, innovation and technology for deploying Web-scale (nation-scale) clouds has been
developed by industry. Much of the construction know-how is therefore not available in the public
domain; the technology is considered to be intellectual property. However, government agencies have
legislated, and public trust authorities and responsibilities that cannot be outsourced to private
companies, including but not limited to responsibilities for ensuring that high security impact systems and
data are protected, and that emergency and critical infrastructure public services are provided on a
massive scale.19
Development of a demonstrable and practical technology knowledge base focused on
state-of-the-art, nation-size clouds which are scalable and capable, and development of accessible
standards and technologies, is needed to solve these nation-scale challenges. A focused set of cloud
services and research would more rapidly lead to world-class cloud advancements to support critical
national priorities and citizen services.
Illustrative example of why this requirement is not considered to be fully met at present: There are two
aspects to this requirement. One is a long-standing set of inherently governmental functions and
responsibilities. The other aspect is the private sector role in developing emerging technology. The core
premise of this requirement is that there are cases where government requirements can and should not be
privatized, and intellectual property and capabilities are appropriately maintained in the private sector.
This highlights the need for partnership in applying emerging technology in the interest of the public
good. For example, in the case of cloud construction and operation, one could envision a need to support
more than 100,000 servers, spanning multiple data centers, and new challenges in network design.
Rationale:
Government target business use cases have identified examples where cloud service providers could help
to support applications of great benefit to the public. USG agencies see a need to provide geospatial data
for public use in emergencies. A real-life proof-of-concept precedent was established through Japan’s
response to the earthquake and tsunami that struck the Greater Tohoku region in March 2011.20
In 2012,
the government of Japan defined an objective to apply cloud computing to support emergency response.
The Japanese agency NISC, NIST, and others are collaborating on the development of a cyber-physical
cloud concept to combine cloud computing and physical device control to respond to emergencies such
that resources, including robotic and automated mechanisms, could be rapidly deployed.
Proposed
Target Date
Define scenarios to support testing state-of-the-art, interoperable, nation-size clouds. 2012 – 2016
Define project concepts. Identify likely technical and standards challenges. 2012 – 2017
Define conceptual research strategy. 2012 - 2015
19
National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, NSTAC Report to the President on Cloud
Computing, May 15, 2012.
20
Responding to the Greater Tohoku Disaster, The Role of the Internet and Cloud Computing in Economic
Recovery and Renewal, Internet Economy Task Force, 2011.

14
2.9 Requirement 9: Defined & Implemented Reliability Design Goals
Industry needs to define and implement reliability design goals, best practices, and related measurement
and reporting processes. (interoperability, portability, and security technology)
Why: As USG agencies increase their use of cloud computing to provide essential public services, it is
essential that industry be able to ensure that design flaws do not result in catastrophic failures or
significant outages over large regions or for extended periods of time.
Illustrative examples of why this requirement is not considered to be fully met at present: Cloud
Builders create mechanisms to compensate for component failures and deliver High Availability, but the
news has highlighted major cloud provider outages. In several cases, cloud providers suffered failures or
design flaws which affected the accessibility of cloud-based services for many subscribers. In April 2011,
an erroneous network reconfiguration triggered a failure, followed by a cascade of recovery events and
subsequent failures, and a lengthy outage. In May 2011, a sequence of cloud outages and software errors
led to email delays. During June and July 2011, the same cloud provider suffered outages that disabled
services. In August 2011, an intense lightning storm overloaded a power transformer; cloud services
were unavailable for hours. In August 2011, a cleanup software bug resulted in customers losing backup
data.
Rationale: Cloud Computing exemplifies reliability scenarios that are not found in traditional computing
and communications architectures. In traditional computing architectures, there is an affinity between the
application and the specific hardware on which it runs; high-availability strategies are implemented per-
platform, usually through hardware redundancy. In cloud computing, the application and the hardware
have less affinity because of virtualization. The economics of hardware redundancy are different in cloud
environments in that redundancy within a cloud must be supported by a cloud provider (because users
cannot reliably know workload-hardware bindings), and cross-cloud redundancy can trigger additional
usage fees. Due to scale, a statistically rare failure event may be a common occurrence in a cloud; clouds
compensate with redundancy implemented by cloud software.
Working with industry and academia, government researchers have identified needs to model,
understand, and predict global behavior and ensure reliability in large distributed systems, such as the
Internet and computational grids. USG researchers21
uncovered design flaws in open-source cloud
software that could result in significant resource leakage when systems operating that software are
exposed to simple malicious attacks.
Proposed
Target Date
Formulate and publish best practices on achieving reliability. 2012 – 2014
Develop a consensus process to measure and report industry-wide cloud reliability
information to assess current and future cloud reliability.
2012 – 2017
Define research methods for real-time measurement and monitoring to predict onset of
catastrophic failure in cloud systems, and tools to identify failure vulnerabilities.
2012 - 2015
21
Dabrowski, C., and K. Mills. "VM Leakage and Orphan Control in Open-Source Clouds." Cloud Computing
Technology and Science (CloudCom), 2011 IEEE Third International Conference on. IEEE, 2011.

15
2.10 Requirement 10: Defined & implemented Cloud Service Metrics
Industry needs to establish Cloud Service Metrics, including Standardized Units of Measurement for
Cloud Resources.
Why: In utility industries, the notion of units of measurement is fundamental to buying and selling
service. Benchmarking is used in traditional computing system operations to determine the performance
of system infrastructure such as hardware and operating systems, and for key application platform
elements such as database servers and Web servers. However, in the case of cloud computing service
delivery, which uses a utility model, IT resources are supplied as abstracted services, often characterized
as Infrastructure as a Service or Platform as a Service. For example, networking and storage are often
provided as abstracted services. Abstracted services can be set to run fast or slow, to be small or large,
and to be as reliable as desired (subject to underlying technology constraints). Service consumers pay for
a “quantity” and a "quality" of the service, which is metered by a cloud computing system. Consumers
need to be able to precisely specify and receive services.
Illustrative example of why this requirement is not fully met at present: In contrast to the precision with
which we categorize units of measurement in electricity, light, or fuels, cloud computing measurements
are relatively imprecise. Furthermore, there is no common collection of vendor agreed-upon specific
terms. For example, while one provider uses an informal “Elastic Compute Unit,” it is imprecise and
does not account for workload mix or speed to memory. The characteristics of storage and access to
storage over a network vary. Service providers have not defined and applied standardized units of
measurement that can be specified in Service-Level Agreements and interoperability exchanges.
Therefore, consumers cannot determine and request cloud services as a utility with a high degree of
predictability, and cannot achieve maximum cost-effectiveness in cloud computing service application.
Rationale: The USG Target Business Use Case, Reference Architecture, and the public security working
groups have all identified this requirement. IaaS services include processing, memory, network, and
storage. Considering only storage, for example, a Gigabyte is not the only unit of measurement. There
are several “flavors” of storage services: structured and unstructured, replicated and non-replicated,
fast-access and slow-access. Furthermore, IaaS attributes have additional dimensionality, such as
variation in access speed or processor speed. In other utility industries, the notion of units of
measurement is fundamental to creating an economy. This requirement will yield a portfolio of formal
Standards for units of measurement in cloud computing, which will be used in a number of ways, from
SLA specifications to interoperability exchanges.
Proposed
Target Date
Specify and Standardize the Units of Measurement for cloud services, seeking public
comment and collaboration.
2012 – 2013
In parallel, incorporate Cloud Service Units of Measurement consistently in Service-
Level Agreements.
2012 - 2013

16
3 Other Considerations and Observations
The following is a small subset of subjects with which the scope of cloud computing has a Venn
Diagram-like relationship. Cloud computing is not a subset or a superset of these topics. More
specifically, while these topics inform the NIST collaborative initiative to build a USG Cloud Computing
Technology Roadmap, in their entirety they are outside of the scope of this effort. The topics are listed
here to make the point that work in these areas is recognized as being highly interdependent with and
essential for overall effectiveness of the roadmap effort.
3.1 Regarding Academia, Industry, Standards Organizations, and
Government Collaboration
While the last several years have seen an increase in cloud deployment and benefit, and there are a large
number of cloud community stakeholders accomplishing valuable work in advancing cloud computing
standards, guidance, and technology, the rapid pace of cloud computing evolution (which has been
characterized as “building the plane while we are flying it”) is still such that the community needs to work
even harder to explicitly leverage our efforts and get ahead of the curve.
For example, there are many approaches to cloud computing standards. In some cases, standards are being
developed in consensus-driven working groups, but are not being applied in implementations. In other
cases, non-standardized implementations evolve in parallel, but do not transition to the point where the
work is leveraged through formal Standards Developing Organizations. One example of a general benefit
that would ensue from aggressively pursuing cloud computing standards is that US government agencies
procuring services would be positioned to specify standards, as opposed to specific cloud provider
services or products. This would improve cost-effectiveness for the taxpayer and level the playing field
for the private sector consumers and service providers.
Collaboration is a productive, but unstructured process that is often driven from the bottom up in the
sense that developers and adopters have individual mission, schedule, and resource objectives and
constraints. Despite these differences, it is clear that there is much convergence in principle. International
technical exchanges22
and reports23
illustrate this point. Priorities defined explicitly through international
conferences hosted by the governments of Canada, China, and the European Commission and standards
organizations,24
but not exclusively there, include: standards, a level playing field that supports technical
innovation, interoperability and open interfaces, a desire to harness the power of cloud to improve public
services, a need for improved understanding of cloud computing by policy makers, guidance to architects
and engineers, and conformity assessments and testing. An example of a practical collaboration is a
mapping exercise that was initially completed by the EC Standards and Interoperability for eInfrastructure
implementation initiative (SIENA) project to look for commonality and synergism between the NIST
22
U.S.-Japan Economic Harmonization Initiative, ICT –IPR Working Group, Washington, D.C., July 2011.
23
Exploring the Future of Cloud Computing: Riding the Next Wave of Technology Driven Transformation, World
Economic Forum, 2010.
24
EC-ETSI workshop “Standards in the Cloud: a transatlantic mindshare”, Sophia-Antipolis, France, September 28-
29, 2011.

17
technical use cases and Cloud Usage Scenarios with European eScience developments.25
In 2012, the
effort continues with technical exchange between the government of Japan, ETSI in coordination with the
EC, and NIST to validate the inventory of standards relevant to cloud computing.
3.2 Interdependency with Cyber Security initiatives
As mentioned in Section 2.2, while cloud computing security requirements are not unique in their entirety
or separate from general IT security requirements, the cloud computing environment presents certain
unique security challenges resulting from the cloud's very high degree of outsourcing, dependence on
networks, sharing (multi-tenancy), and scale. Several initiatives that relate to these challenges are:
The Department of Homeland Security Continuous Asset Evaluation, Situational Awareness, and Risk
Scoring (CAESARS) project, which is providing an architecture for dynamic system monitoring and
reporting;
The Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) initiative at NIST, which provides specifications for
expressing security configurations and events, event management, and incident handling;
The National Science Foundation Future Internet Architectures initiative which is developing Internet
architectures to provide advanced security and reliability in the context of emerging Internet usage
patterns; and
The Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA). In accordance with the Act, Federal
Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 200 and NIST Special Publication 800-53 (periodically
updated) provide baseline security controls and guidance for federal information systems.
The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) is an internationally recognized
effort originally conceived by the US CIO Council sponsored Cloud Security Working group in 2010.
NIST serves as a technical advisor to the General Services Administration which executes the FedRAMP
program under the cognizance of the Office of Management and Budget, United States Chief Information
Officer and staff, and the US Federal CIO Council. FedRAMP became operational in 2012.
Security requirements are tightly coupled with interoperability and portability, reliability, and
maintainability, which also include considerations which are specific to the cloud computing model. One
example of general security work that directly relates to security requirements in the cloud environment is
the ability to securely migrate virtual machines between dissimilar organizations or hardware/software
environments. In other words, such work aims to provide confidence that before a virtual machine is
created in a new physical environment, that environment satisfies the technical policy controls specific to
the application and data. Other general areas include authentication techniques such as multifactor
authentication with tokens, applied cryptography, and software assurance techniques (e.g., testing and
analysis) needed to build confidence that logical boundaries implemented in cloud systems are
sufficiently strong to provide security.
3.3 Interdependency with emerging Big Data technology
Big data has emerged as a technology term and trend that is complementary to and considered to be
equally as transformational as the cloud computing model. Cloud Computing subject matter experts
25
OASIS International Cloud Symposium, October 2011, 2012.

18
consider cloud to be an enabler of big data capture, storage, analysis, sharing and management. Big data
subject matter experts commonly refer to cloud computing as being indistinguishable from big data.
Just as cloud computing struggled with definition early in its adoption, and similarly was represented as
an “old” or “ new” capability depending on the perspective of those defining it, big data as a concept is
the focus of definition and framing discussions. In 2012, the US federal government identified a Big Data
Research and Development Initiative to explore how big data can be used to address government
requirements. In planning its Cloud Computing Forum & Workshop Outreach event (January 2013),
NIST expanded the agenda to explore the convergence of cloud computing and big data, with the
expectation of informing its respective planning and program efforts.
3.4 Organizational Policy
The perspective presented in this document is that technology can be used to inform organization policy,
and can be used to help implement organization policy, but is not one and the same as organization
policy. As highlighted in Section 2.6, it is necessary to have technical solutions which allow differing
policies to coexist side by side in a global environment irrespective of geographical location and
sovereignty. If not, the benefits of large-scale interoperability and portability for cloud workloads will not
be realized. Moreover, the ability to bridge policy differences is essential for maintaining service while
policies evolve.
This capability of abstracting technical solutions, so they can be used to implement sovereign policy
decisions, but are not prescriptively constrained by specific policy decisions, is essential to universal
implementation of the security requirements and associated controls which are critical to ensuring privacy
rights and global Ecommerce. This same capability is essential in the development of common
commercial application terms of Service-Level Agreements, including commonality of pricing unit
definitions, customer protective contract terms, liability ownerships, audit rights, exit provisions, and
business continuity.
3.5 Interdependency with Other National Priority Initiatives
The Cloud Computing model is clearly an enabler of national priority initiatives such as Health IT and
Smart Grid, and is enabled by programs such as National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace
(NSTIC). There are tremendous win-win opportunities if we can quickly move toward integrated
development of consensus-based cloud computing standards.
An intuitive illustrative target case is the application of cloud computing as an enabler to improve health
care for veterans. There is great focus on government security requirements, but other government
requirements, such as Section 50826
compliance, are often overlooked. One of the strengths of the cloud
model is the anytime/anywhere deployment on a broad variety of end-devices. This would be a key
advantage in addressing disability access. Physical disabilities, post-traumatic stress disorder, or
depression can make downloading 508-compliant profiles to individual devices challenging. One way to
help address this is to deploy Health IT systems using a common profile that defines a preference specific
to each individual. However, the benefit of achieving this scenario applies much more broadly than
satisfying a government requirement or supporting a specific interest group. The same solution could be
26
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (29 U.S.C. 794d), as amended by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998
(P.L. 105-220), August 7, 1998....REQUIREMENTS FOR FEDERAL DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES.-- ...
(1) ACCESSIBILITY

19
applied to improve the ability of parents, educators, and other responsible parties to screen Internet-
accessible content by minors. Over and above these specialized requirements, the same capability could
be leveraged to improve convenience and ease of use for all cloud service users. These requirements can
be met without applying the cloud model – the cloud computing model is simply an enabler that has the
potential to accelerate this capability. This concept intuitively demonstrates the relationship between
roadmap requirements and practical implementation. A simple test of the capabilities described above
would require integrated security standards to secure the data and protect the privacy of the profile as well
as the data, data portability, and interoperability at the software, platform, and infrastructure levels of
cloud.
Information security is naturally a critical factor for widespread adoption of Cloud Computing. For
government users, particularly early adopters, security fears are front and center. In addition to data
confidentiality, integrity, and availability, the need for trusted identities and secure and efficient
management of these identities while users' privacy is protected is a key element for the successful
adoption of any cloud solution. Augmenting security technologies and best practices, NSTIC could
enhance security and privacy for cloud services. NSTIC defines a mean to create a secure, trusted
Identity Ecosystem that is capable of establishing a user-centric privacy protection for any Cloud
Ecosystem. It is generally acknowledged that the use of passwords does not provide optimal security or
assurance. The NSTIC Strategy27
calls for the development of interoperable technology standards and
policies – the “Identity Ecosystem” 28
– where individuals, organizations, and underlying infrastructure –
such as routers and servers – can be authoritatively authenticated. The mechanisms employed by an
Identity Ecosystem are structured in a robust framework comprised of the overarching set of
interoperability standards, risk models, privacy and liability policies, requirements, and accountability
mechanisms. Individuals will be able to validate their identities and then securely access the Identity
Ecosystem. Within NSTIC’s trusted framework of defined security requirements based on risk and
sensitivity, Cloud services will be more securely supported. The objective is more than lowering cost and
increasing access; it also supports interoperability, portability, and security.
3.6 Education of Technical Staff and Cloud Consumers
Major transformation using Cloud Computing technology requires business and technical stakeholders to
work together. One of the major impediments to cloud computing adoption is lack of a common
understanding of business and technical benefits. Standards and interoperability make inter-agency
integration possible resulting in better business outcomes. Business and technical objections to cloud
computing adoption can be overcome by educating technical staff on the business value of cloud
computing and business users of the technical capabilities now possible that were not available before.
27
NSTIC Strategy, “Enhancing Online Choice, Efficiency, Security, and Privacy”, The White House, Washington,
April 2011, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/NSTICstrategy_041511.pdf. The notion of an
“Identity Ecosystem” is drawn from the above reference. There is no intent in the USG Cloud Computing
Technology Roadmap to endorse or advocate the establishment of the “Identity Ecosystem”. Comments regarding
the “Identity Ecosystem” should be referred to the NIST NSTIC Program: http://www.nist.gov/nstic/about-
netic.html
28
NSTIC Strategy, “Enhancing Online Choice, Efficiency, Security, and Privacy”, The White House, Washington,
April 2011, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/NSTICstrategy_041511.pdf. The notion of an
“Identity Ecosystem” is drawn from the above reference. There is no intent in the USG Cloud Computing
Technology Roadmap to endorse or advocate the establishment of the “Identity Ecosystem”. Comments regarding
the “Identity Ecosystem” should be referred to the NIST NSTIC Program: http://www.nist.gov/nstic/about-
netic.html

20
With the technology continuing to mature, there needs to be an effort to constantly keep interested parties
up to date on technology changes and legal issues to lower barriers to cloud adoption.

21
4. Progress and Next Steps
This document marks the completion of the second phase of the NIST Cloud Computing Program.
The first phase of the NIST Cloud Computing program and initiative to collaboratively build a USG
Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap completed in November 2011, and marked by the draft release of
SP 500-293 US Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap, volumes I and II.
Over the past year, NIST incorporated over 200 public comments it received in response to the November
2011 draft, and re-issued volume I as this final special publication. In working with its public and private
sector partners from academia, industry, standards organizations, US federal, state and local government
agencies, and the international community, NIST was able to achieve major Phase 2 objectives, including:
 Validating the Phase 1 Reference Architecture (SP 500-292) through cloud service provider
examples of categorized services, and working with cloud stakeholders to establish a repository
of the mapped vendor services to support USG and others in comparing cloud service offerings;
and through formal standards organization activities, including but not limited to ISO and I-TUT
working groups;
 Continuing to identify high-priority interoperability, portability, and security requirements which
must be met for USG agencies to accelerate the adoption of the cloud computing model;
continuing to assess standards, guidance, and technology that must be in place to meet these
requirements, and recommending Priority Action Plans (PAPs) for voluntary self-tasking by the
cloud stakeholder community, to support standards, guidance, and technology advancement;
 Working with cloud stakeholders to identify efforts which satisfy the objectives of the PAPs,
assessing and communicating the extent to which the requirements are satisfied, and defining
processes to leverage these efforts to support the USG adoption of cloud computing;
 Identifying the subset of PAP objectives which are consistent with NIST core mission standards,
guidance and research activities; developing NIST PAP plans, and executing those plans; and
communicating the progress accomplished by the PAP projects toward the he USG roadmap
requirements through the June 2012 NIST Cloud Computing Forum & Workshop event;
 Integrating these strategic activities with NIST tactical program projects and working groups;
continuing to deliver special publications, technical guidance, and support collaborative Web-
based tools to support these tactical efforts;
 Defining and tracking measures and metrics to assess program effectiveness, the most significant
being the federal balanced scorecard objectives for the reference architecture and FedRAMP
technical advisory functions;
 Continuing outreach activities including the NIST Cloud Computing Forum & Workshop series
to calibrate and leverage NIST efforts with the broader stakeholder community; and
 Analyzing and assessing the technical work completed through these efforts, and applying this
analysis to revise the USG Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap on a periodic basis.
The first two phases of the program executed and achieved results consistent with the program strategy
initially defined May through October 2010, and the program time line presented in November 2010.

22
As intended, the roadmap document has served as a practical mechanism to integrate and present analysis,
findings, and useful technical artifacts generated through the NIST Cloud Computing program public and
federal working groups, and internal NIST projects.
However, the roadmap, and PAP project efforts related to the roadmap, also provided an opportunity over
a two year period to assess progress and effectiveness. The NIST assessment is that the collaborative
approach has been effective, and the initiative has met the goal of technically advancing the cloud
computing model – particularly in its target area of interoperability, portability, and security standards,
guidance, and technology requirements.
The NIST assessment is based on a 30-month continued level of engagement with the cloud community
in public working groups and NIST Cloud Computing Forum and Workshop events. Hundreds of
individuals and organizations are registered working group members, and the NIST-hosted cloud forum
events have been registered to capacity. In terms of results, the “useful information for cloud adopters”
available publically on the NIST Cloud Computing Web site and special publications produced from
NIST projects and working groups are widely referenced and used. These are summarized in Volume II
of the roadmap document. The most widely recognized work, after the NIST Cloud Computing Definition,
SP 800-145(Draft), is the NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture, SP 500-292, which was first
issued in September 2011, and continues to be refined and used as the basis for developing a standardized
reference architecture by international standards bodies, and by US government agencies and industry for
its intended purpose of categorizing cloud services so that government agencies and others can compare
cloud services from different providers more easily. The major work completed in 2012 was in the area
of service level agreements and refinement of the security components of the reference architecture.
NIST also bases its assessment on the review and support for the US Government Cloud Computing
Technology Roadmap Volume 1, Release 1.0, (DRAFT) High-Priority Requirements to Further USG
Agency Cloud Computing Adoption by the representatives designated by the US Federal CIO Council to
participate in the Federal Cloud Computing Standards and Technology Working Group. Confirmation of
the priorities presented here by a broad sample of representatives of USG organizations who are
responsible for deploying IT to support agency missions reinforces the conclusion that “we” – NIST and
its cloud community collaboration partners – “got it right” in terms of the objectives for the effort and the
roadmap. Equally important, of the 200 public comments received in response to the roadmap, there were
no disagreements in principle or challenges to the overall value of the work – comments were
refinements, additions, and in some cases, requests that scope be added to the effort. Finally, one of the
most basic measures of the value of work is whether it is used – NIST is happy to report that the roadmap
and technical work completed in partnership with the cloud community is widely used and referenced, not
only in the US, but broadly in the international community.
Given this assessment, the following section presents the current thinking, strategy, and plan for the NIST
Cloud Computing program and USG Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap initiative to continue to
leverage and assess the roadmap progress going forward, in support of the overall goal of supporting USG
agencies in the secure and effective deployment of cloud computing.
The expectation is that the NIST Cloud Computing program and USG Cloud Computing Technology
Roadmap initiative has established a baseline of consensus requirements that must be met to accelerate

23
cloud adoption, and that the focus will continue to be the work of NIST’ external partners as it relates to
each of the respective 10 priority requirements.
The expectation is that the program will continue its presence through outreach activities and interactions
with other USG and international stakeholders, and track progress towards the priorities presented in this
document.
4.1 NIST Cloud Computing Program Future Phases
For context, the following diagram revisits Phase 1 of the NIST Cloud Computing program. Phase I
effectively established and integrated three strategic processes, public working groups, and NIST cloud
efforts to develop the first USG Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap, and help NIST to prioritize its
internal projects.
NIST CLOUD COMPUTING PROGRAM (PHASE 1) CONCEPT
1
How to build a USG Cloud Computing
Technology Roadmap
1. Define
Target USG
Cloud
Computing
Business Use
Cases
2. Define
Neutral Cloud
Computing
Reference
Architecture &
Taxonomy
3. Generate Cloud
Computing
Technology
Roadmap –
Translate
Requirements
& Identify Gaps
priorities
risks
obstacles
Expand
CC Definition
ref. architecture
NIST CC efforts
• Standards Working Group,
Standards Organization liaison, NIST
CC Definition & Reference Architecture
Submissions
• Standards Acceleration to
Jumpstart the Adoption of
Cloud Computing (SAJACC) –
qualitative testing of
specifications against
interoperability, security, and
portability requirements
• Guidance – Special Publications;
technical advisor to Fed CIO Council
(FedRAMP), Federal CC Standards &
Technology Working Group
• Complex Computing
Simulation & Modeling – Koala
IaaS resource allocation algorithms
Strategic Program Tactical Program
Interagency Report:
USG Cloud Computing
Technology Roadmap
list of Tactical Priorities &
Deliverables
Concurrent & Iterative 3-step process
that drives tactical efforts
Phase 1, May 2010 - November 2011

24
Phase 2 of the NIST Cloud Computing program continued the Phase 1 scope and activities, but
shifted focus to introduce new strategic activities to leverage the USG Cloud Computing
Technology Roadmap produced in Phase 1.
NIST Cloud Computing efforts
• Public & working groups, Standards Organization liaison (Definition & Reference Architecture submission)
• Standards Acceleration to Jumpstart the Adoption of Cloud Computing (SAJACC) – qualitative testing of
specifications against interoperability, security, and portability requirements
• Guidance – Special Publications; technical advisor to Fed CIO Council (FedRAMP), Federal CC Standards & Technology
Working Group
• Complex Computing Simulation & Modeling – Koala
1
NIST CLOUD COMPUTING PROGRAM – (PHASE 2) CONCEPT
How to build a USG Cloud Computing
Technology Roadmap
1. Define
Target USG
Cloud
Computing
Business Use
Cases
2. REFINE &
APPLY Neutral
CC Reference
Architecture &
Taxonomy
3. UPDATE Cloud
Computing
Technology
Roadmap –
Translate
Requirements
& Identify Gaps
priorities
risks
obstacles
Vendors
map
services
Strategic Program
(continue phase 1 activities and…)
Tactical Program
Assess & Track: USG CC High Priority
Requirements met by Priority Action Plans
(self-tasked by NIST and other CC stakeholders)
Rqmt 1: International consensus interoperability,
security, portability standards
Rqmt 2: Solutions for High Priority Security
requirements
Rqmt 3: Technical Specifications to enable high quality
SLAs
…….
Rqmt 10: Defined and Implemented cloud service
metrics
Integrate results into tactical priorities
Measure Results
... leverage Priority Action Plans (PAPs) selected for
self-tasking by Cloud Stakeholder Community
USG Cloud
Computing
Technology
Roadmap
Launched November 2011
Future phases of the program are planned to include:
 Applying the USG Cloud Computing Business Use Case template to support USG development
of agency mission use cases;
 Leveraging this effort to complete and issue the roadmap Volume III: Technical Considerations
for USG Cloud Computing Deployment Decisions;
 Continuing to validating the Reference Architecture (SP 500-292) through cloud service provider
examples of categorized services, and working with cloud stakeholders to establish a repository
of the mapped vendor services to support USG and others in comparing cloud service offerings;
 Continuing to identify high-priority interoperability, portability, and security requirements which
must be met for USG agencies to accelerate the adoption of the cloud computing model;

25
continuing to assess standards, guidance, and technology that must be in place to meet these
requirements, and recommending Priority Action Plans (PAPs) for voluntary self-tasking by the
cloud stakeholder community, to support standards, guidance, and technology advancement;
 Working with cloud stakeholders to identify efforts which satisfy the objectives of the PAPs,
assessing and communicating the extent to which the requirements are satisfied, and defining
processes to leverage these efforts to support the USG adoption of cloud computing;
 Identifying the subset of PAP objectives which are consistent with NIST core mission standards,
guidance and research activities; developing NIST PAP plans, and executing those plans;
 Integrating these strategic activities with NIST tactical program projects and working groups;
continuing to deliver special publications, technical guidance, and support collaborative Web-
based tools to support these tactical efforts;
 Defining and tracking measures and metrics to assess program effectiveness;
 Continuing outreach activities including the NIST Cloud Computing Forum & Workshop series
to calibrate and leverage NIST efforts with the broader stakeholder community; and
 Analyzing and assessing the technical work completed through these efforts, and applying this
analysis to revise the USG Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap on a periodic basis.

26
4.2 Summary of Time Line and Deliverables
4
NIST COMPUTING PROGRAM TIMELINE
Nov
2011
June
2012
S
T
R
A
T
E
G
I
C
NIST Cloud Computing Special Pubs
Guidelineson Security and Privacy …… 800-144
Definitionof Cloud Computing …………..800-145
CC Synopsis & Recommendations……..800-146
CC StandardsRoadmap …………………..…500-291
CC Reference Architecture………………...500-292
USG CC Technology Roadmap Draft.... 500-293
Tactical efforts
Public & Federal Standards & Technology working groups
Initiate NIST CC Program Phase II & beyond
Integrate & track USG Technology Roadmap Priority Action
Plans (PAPs) with external stakeholders
Integrate results into tactical priorities
Measure Results
NIST CC
Forum &
Workshop IV
NIST CC
Forum &
Workshop V
Jan
2013
NIST CC & Big
Data Forum &
Workshop (VI)
Standards liaison, FedRamp & other technical advisory, Guidance, Koala
USG Cloud
Computing
Technology
Roadmap
Version 1.1,
SP 500-293
Volume I, public
comments
incorporated
Analyze Phase 1
working group &
project results
Complete
1st draft
for public
comment
USG Cloud
Computing
Technology
Roadmap
Version 1
SP 500-293
Planned NIST Cloud ComputingSpecial Pubs
•Revised CC StandardsRoadmap …………………..…500-291
•Revised USG CC Technology Roadmap .... 500-293
1. Vol I High-priorityrequirementsto Further USG Agency CC Adoption
2. Vol II Useful Informationfor Cloud Adopters
3. Draft Vol. III Technical Considerationsfor USG CC DeploymentDecisions
May
2010
NIST CC
Forum &
Workshop I

27
Appendix A: USG Interagency partners and contributors
Bruce Beckwith, Department of Energy
Kathy Conrad, Principal Deputy Associate Administrator, General Services Administration
Earl Crane, Department of Homeland Security, Information Security and Identity Management
Committee (ISIMC)
Dominic Gomes, Office of the Chief Information Officer, Department of Health and Human
Services
Lon D. Gowen, Ph.D., National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Goddard Space
Flight Center
Audrey M. Hogan, Tennessee Valley Authority
Dr. Prabha N Kumar, Special Assistant, Department of Defense, OCIO
Festus C. Onyegbula, Office of Information Technology, National Institute of Food and
Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Mr. James Ramskill, Office of the Director of National Intelligence
David Raw, Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO), Department of Homeland Security
Lew Sanford Jr., DCS-OESAE, Social Security Administration (with other SSA participants)
Charles Santangelo, Senior IT Budget Manager, Capital Planning and Governance, OCIO, Office
of the CIO, NASA
Param Soni, Environmental Protection Agency
Gerald L. Smith, Department of Defense and OASIS
Peter Tseronis, Chief Technology Officer, Department of Energy

Special Publication 500-293
US Government Cloud Computing
Technology Roadmap
Volume II
Useful Information for Cloud Adopters
Lee Badger, Robert Bohn, Shilong Chu, Frederic de Vaulx,
Mike Hogan, Michaela Iorga, Viktor Kauffman, Fang Liu, Jian Mao,
John Messina, Kevin Mills, Eric Simmon, Annie Sokol, Jin Tong,
Fred Whiteside and Dawn Leaf

US Government Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap, Volume II

U.S. Department of Commerce
Penny Pritzker, Secretary
Willie May, Acting Under Secretary for Standards and Technology and Acting Director
US Government Cloud Computing Technology
Roadmap Volume II
Lee Badger, Robert Bohn, Shilong Chu, Frederic de
Vaulx, Mike Hogan, Michaela Iorga, Viktor Kauffman,
Fang Liu, Jian Mao, John Messina, Kevin Mills,
Eric Simmon, Annie Sokol, Jin Tong, Fred Whiteside
and Dawn Leaf
NIST Special Publication 500-293
Cloud Computing Program
Gaithersburg, MD 20899
http:dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.500-293
October 2014

Reports on Computer Systems Technology
The Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
promotes the U.S. economy and public welfare by providing technical leadership for the nation’s
measurement and standards infrastructure. ITL develops tests, test methods, reference data, proof of concept
implementations, and technical analysis to advance the development and productive use of information
technology. This Special Publication 500-series reports on ITL’s research, guidance, and outreach efforts in
Information Technology and its collaborative activities with industry, government, and academic
organizations.
National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 500-293
Natl. Inst. Stand. Technol. Spec. Publ. 500-293, 98 pages (October 2014)
Certain commercial entities, equipment, or materials may be
identified in this document in order to describe an experimental
procedure or concept adequately. Such identification is not
intended to imply recommendation or endorsement by the
National Institute of Standards and Technology, nor is it
intended to imply that the entities, materials, or equipment are
necessarily the best available for the purpose.

iii
Acknowledgements
The authors, David Bernstein, Shilong Chu, Fang Liu, Viktor Kaufmann, Jian Mao, and Jin Tong,
of Knowcean Consulting Incorporated (under contract through the Federal Integrated Product
Team, Space & Naval Warfare (SPAWAR) Systems Center Atlantic, Lee Badger, Robert Bohn,
Mike Hogan, Michaela Iorga, John Messina, Kevin Mills, Eric Simmon, Annie Sokol, Fred
Whiteside and Dawn Leaf of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), gratefully
acknowledge and appreciate the broad contributions from members of the NIST Cloud Computing
US Government Target Business Use Case, Reference Architecture and Taxonomy, Standards
Acceleration to Jumpstart the Adoption of Cloud Computing (SAJACC), Security, and Standards
Roadmap Working Groups.
We especially acknowledge Carolyn French, Romayne Hines, and Peter Mell of NIST for providing
technical input and detailed editorial support.

iv
Table of Contents
1 INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................... 1
1.1 NIST CLOUD COMPUTING PROGRAM BACKGROUND ............................................................................................. 1
1.2 NIST CLOUD COMPUTING PROGRAM VISION ....................................................................................................... 2
1.3 INTENDED AUDIENCE AND USE............................................................................................................................. 2
1.4 DOCUMENT ORGANIZATION ................................................................................................................................. 3
2 NIST CLOUD COMPUTING DEFINITION AND REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE ...... 5
2.1 REVISITING THE DEFINITION................................................................................................................................. 5
2.2 NIST CLOUD COMPUTING REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE ....................................................................................... 7
2.2.1 CONCEPTUAL MODEL................................................................................................................................... 8
2.2.2 CLOUD COMPUTING ACTORS........................................................................................................................ 9
2.2.3 ARCHITECTURE COMPONENTS .....................................................................................................................15
2.3 NIST CLOUD COMPUTING TAXONOMY ...............................................................................................................17
3 CLOUD COMPUTING USE CASES AND REQUIREMENTS ................................... 18
3.1 TARGET BUSINESS USE CASE AND HIGH-LEVEL REQUIREMENTS........................................................................18
3.1.1 BUSINESS USE CASE TEMPLATE ...................................................................................................................20
3.1.2 BUSINESS USE CASE SUMMARIES..................................................................................................................20
3.1.3 BUSINESS USE CASE ANALYSIS .....................................................................................................................24
3.2 SAJACC USE CASES AND TECHNICAL REQUIREMENT ........................................................................................41
4 CLOUD COMPUTING STANDARDS AND GAP ANALYSIS.................................... 43
4.1 CLOUD COMPUTING STANDARDS.........................................................................................................................44
4.2 CLOUD COMPUTING STANDARDS GAPS AND USG PRIORITIES ............................................................................44
4.3 ACCELERATING THE DEVELOPMENT THE USE OF CLOUD COMPUTING STANDARDS............................................46
5 HIGH-PRIORITY SECURITY REQUIREMENTS ....................................................... 48
5.1 UNDERSTANDING SECURITY IN THE CLOUD CONTEXT.........................................................................................49
5.1.1 CLOUD SERVICE MODEL PERSPECTIVES.......................................................................................................49
5.1.2 IMPLICATIONS OF CLOUD DEPLOYMENT MODELS ........................................................................................49
5.1.3 SHARED SECURITY RESPONSIBILITY..............................................................................................................49
5.1.4 DEVELOPING SECURITY ARCHITECTURE FOR CLOUD SYSTEMS......................................................................50
5.2 CHALLENGING SECURITY REQUIREMENTS AND RISK MITIGATIONS ....................................................................50
5.3 PROCESS-ORIENTED REQUIREMENTS...................................................................................................................51
5.3.1 NIST SP 800-53 SECURITY CONTROLS FOR CLOUD-BASED INFORMATION SYSTEMS......................................51
5.3.2 CLOUD AUDIT ASSURANCE AND LOG SENSITIVITY MANAGEMENT..................................................................52
5.3.3 CLOUD CERTIFICATION AND ACCREDITATION...............................................................................................56

v
5.3.4 NEEDED ELECTRONIC DISCOVERY GUIDELINES............................................................................................56
5.3.5 NEEDED CLOUD PRIVACY GUIDELINES ........................................................................................................57
5.3.6 CLARITY ON CLOUD ACTORS SECURITY ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES ..........................................................59
5.3.7 TRUSTWORTHINESS OF CLOUD OPERATORS..................................................................................................60
5.3.8 BUSINESS CONTINUITY AND DISASTER RECOVERY.........................................................................................61
5.3.9 TECHNICAL CONTINUOUS MONITORING CAPABILITIES..................................................................................62
5.4 FOCUSED TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS ................................................................................................................64
5.4.1 VISIBILITY FOR CONSUMERS.........................................................................................................................64
5.4.2 CONTROL FOR CONSUMERS .........................................................................................................................65
5.4.3 DATA SECURITY...........................................................................................................................................67
5.4.4 RISK OF ACCOUNT COMPROMISE .................................................................................................................69
5.4.5 IDENTITY CREDENTIAL AND ACCESS MANAGEMENT (ICAM) AND AUTHORIZATION ........................................70
5.4.6 MULTI-TENANCY RISKS AND CONCERNS .......................................................................................................72
5.4.7 CLOUD-BASED DENIAL OF SERVICE .............................................................................................................74
5.4.8 INCIDENT RESPONSE....................................................................................................................................75
6 SUMMARY AND NEXT STEPS................................................................................. 76
7 APPENDIX A – SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT (SLA) TAXONOMY AND
METRICS ......................................................................................................................... 78
8 APPENDIX B – RELIABILITY RESEARCH IN CLOUD-BASED COMPLEX
SYSTEMS ........................................................................................................................ 82
9 APPENDIX C – USEFUL REFERENCES.................................................................. 84

vi
List of Figures
Figure 1: The Conceptual Reference Model ........................................................................................9
Figure 2: Cloud Broker Interactions...................................................................................................13
Figure 3: Intermediary Cloud Provider Brokerage Example .............................................................14
Figure 4: Scope of Controls between Provider and Consumer ..........................................................15
Figure 5: Cloud Provider – Service Orchestration.............................................................................16
Figure 6: Challenging Security Requirements to Mitigation Mapping..............................................50
Figure 7: Information Life Cycle Management Phases .....................................................................69
Figure 8: Service-Level Agreement Generic Concepts Mindmap.....................................................79
Figure 9: Cloud-Specific SLA Concepts Mindmap ...........................................................................80
Figure 10: High Level View of Metric Concept Model.....................................................................81

vii
List of Tables
TABLE 1 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VOLUME I REQUIREMENTS AND WORK PRESENTED IN VOLUME IIIX
TABLE 2: MISSION REQUIREMENTS FROM TARGET BUSINESS USE CASES...........................................26
TABLE 3: BUSINESS USE CASES AND MISSION REQUIREMENTS ..........................................................27
TABLE 4: CROSS-CUTTING SECURITY SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS..........................................................32
TABLE 5: CROSS-CUTTING INTEROPERABILITY SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ...........................................35
TABLE 6: CROSS-CUTTING PORTABILITY REQUIREMENTS ..................................................................39
TABLE 7: MAPPING SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS TO MISSION REQUIREMENTS.........................................40
TABLE 8: SAJACC USE CASES ...........................................................................................................42
TABLE 9: AREA OF STANDARDIZATION GAPS AND STANDARDIZATION PRIORITIES ............................46

US Government Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap, Volume II, Release 2.0
viii
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The first release of the Special Publication 500-293 United States Government USG Cloud
Computing Technology Roadmap document consists of two volumes. Consistent with the NIST
Cloud Computing program strategy, the roadmap focuses on both strategic and tactical objectives
related to cloud computing.
Volume I, High-Priority Requirements to Further USG Cloud Computing Adoption, frames the
discussion and introduces the roadmap in terms of summarized strategic requirements that must be
met for USG agencies to further cloud adoption. The roadmap strategic elements can be
characterized as “high-priority technical areas” which are enablers for cloud computing in both the
short and long term.
Volume II, Useful Information for Cloud Adopters, provides information for those actively working
on strategic and tactical cloud computing initiatives, including but not limited to, government cloud
adopters.
This volume presents a summary of the work completed from November 2010 through September
2011 through the NIST Cloud Computing program and collaborative effort to develop a USG Cloud
Computing Technology Roadmap.
This document presents a representative sample of the work that was completed and documented
through this effort. Additional working documents, special publications, meeting and other
collaboration artifacts can be found on the NIST Cloud Computing Web site
Volume II:
• Introduces a conceptual model, the NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture and
Taxonomy;
• Presents USG target business use cases and technical use cases in the cloud;
• Identifies existing interoperability, portability, and security standards that are applicable to the
cloud computing model and specifies high-priority gaps for which new or revised standards,
guidance, and technology need to be developed;
• Discusses security challenges in the context of cloud computing adoption, high-priority security
requirements, and current and future risk mitigation measures requirements; and
• Provides insight into the rationale for the list of candidate Priority Action Plans (PAPs)
recommended for voluntary self-tasking by government and private sector organizations, listed
in Volume I.
The document presents a subset of the analysis that drove the rationale for the requirements
introduced in Volume I of this NIST Special Publication, titled High-Priority Requirements to
Further USG Agency Cloud Computing Adoption.
The following Table 1 shows the relationship between the high-priority requirements in Volume I
and the key NIST-led activities and contributing sources that are summarized here in Volume II.

ix
CloudComputing
StandardsRoadmap
WorkingGroup
CloudComputing
ReferenceArchitecture
andTaxonomyWorking
Group
CloudComputingSecurity
WorkingGroup
CloudComputingTarget
USGBusinessUseCase
WorkingGroup
StandardsAccelerationto
JumpstarttheAdoptionof
CloudComputing
NISTSpecialPublications:
800-125,800-144,800-146
NISTComplex
InformationSystem
MeasurementProject:
Koala,IaaSComputing
SimulationModel
Requirement 1: International voluntary
consensus-based standards (interoperability,
performance, portability, and security
standards)
X X X
Requirement 2: Solutions for High-priority
Security Requirements, technically de-coupled
from organizational policy decisions (security
standards and technology)
X X X X X
Requirement 3: Technical specifications to
enable development of consistent, high-quality
Service-Level Agreements (interoperability,
performance, portability, and security standards
and guidance)
X X X
Requirement 4: Clearly and consistently
categorized cloud services (interoperability and
portability guidance and technology)
X
Requirement 5: Frameworks to support
seamless implementation of federated
community cloud environments (interoperability
and portability guidance and technology)
X X X
Requirement 6: Updated Organization Policy
that reflects the Cloud Computing Business and
Technology model (security guidance)
X
Requirement 7: Defined unique government
regulatory requirements and solutions
(accessibility, interoperability, performance,
portability, and security technology)
X X X
Requirement 8: Collaborative parallel strategic
“future cloud” development initiatives
(interoperability, portability, and security
technology)
X
Requirement 9: Defined and implemented
reliability design goals (interoperability,
performance, portability, and security
technology)
X X X X
Requirement 10: Defined and implemented
cloud service metrics (interoperability,
performance, and portability standards)
X X X X
Table 1 Relationship between Volume I Requirements and Work Presented in Volume II

1
1 Introduction
1.1 NIST Cloud computing program background
The National Institute of Standards and Technology plays a technology leadership role in
accelerating the federal government’s secure adoption of cloud computing. In this role, NIST, in
close consultation and collaboration with standards bodies, the private sector, and other
stakeholders, is leading the efforts to develop the necessary standards and guidelines that will
facilitate the secure, rapid adoption of cloud computing.
The NIST Cloud Computing Program was formally launched in November 2010, and supports the
US federal government effort to incorporate cloud computing, where appropriate, as a replacement
for, or enhancement of, the traditional information systems and application models. The NIST
Cloud Computing Program operates in coordination with other federal cloud computing efforts and
is integrated within the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy.1
For more information regarding the program’s scope and objectives, the reader is referred to
Volume I of this NIST Special Publication 500-293: High-Priority Requirements to Further USG
Agency Cloud Computing Adoption.
In order to leverage the expertise of the broad cloud computing stakeholder community, NIST has
established the following Public Working Groups:
• Cloud Computing Reference Architecture and Taxonomy Working Group
• Cloud Computing Target Business Use Cases Working Group
• Cloud Computing SAJACC Technical Use Cases Working Group
• Cloud Computing Standards Roadmap Working Group
• Cloud Computing Security Working Group
The groups are listed in the same sequence that their respective subject matter is presented in this
document. The order does not imply priority or chronological sequencing.
1
Office of Management and Budget, U.S. Chief Information Officer, Federal Cloud Computing Strategy, Feb. 8, 2011.
Online: www.cio.gov/documents/Federal-Cloud-Computing-Strategy.pdf.

2
1.2 NIST Cloud Computing Program Vision
NIST seeks to provide thought leadership and guidance around the cloud computing model to
catalyze its use within industry and government, and to shorten the adoption cycle, which will
enable near-term cost savings and increased ability to quickly create and deploy safe and secure
enterprise solutions. Additionally, NIST is committed to fostering cloud computing practices that
support interoperability, portability, and security requirements that are appropriate and achievable
for various usage scenarios, by focusing on the necessary standards, specifications, and guidance
that must be in place for these requirements to be met.
The first release of the USG Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap is presented as a two-volume
NIST Special Publication 500-293 document. The process and document together are the
mechanism used to define and communicate the high-priority USG interoperability, portability, and
security requirements for cloud computing, and to identify the necessary associated standards,
guidance, and technology.
This document, Volume II of the Special Publication, focuses on work that helped to identify the
USG high-priority interoperability, portability, and security requirements which are introduced in
Volume I and summarizes work in the following areas:
• Introduction of an overall cloud computing conceptual model in the form of the NIST Cloud
Computing Reference Architecture and Taxonomy. This technical reference can be used to
understand, discuss, categorize, and compare different cloud service offerings, and to facilitate
the communication and analysis of the security, interoperability, and portability candidate
standards and reference implementations.
• Presentation of a template and an initial set of USG target business and technical use cases that
describe how government agencies seek to use cloud computing, and presentation of key,
specific technical requirements that surfaced through these use cases.
• Identification of existing interoperability, portability, and security standards and guidance that
are applicable to the cloud computing model, and identification of high-priority gaps for which
new or revised standards, guidance, and technology need to be developed.
• Identification of the high-priority security requirements that challenge the adoption of cloud
computing and presentation of proposed mitigation strategies.
• Discussion of considerations and activities related to cloud Service-Level Agreements (SLAs).
1.3 Intended Audience and Use
This publication is intended for a diverse audience:
• US Policy Makers, US Federal CIO Council, and those with identified key roles identified in
the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy – as a technology-oriented reference to inform policy
and planning.
• USG Agencies – as a useful tool in the context of the USG Federal Cloud Computing
Strategy risk-based management decision framework.

3
• Cloud Computing Stakeholders (Academia, Government, Industry, Standards Developing
Organizations) – as a consolidated presentation of USG cloud computing technology
perspectives and work, including a unifying cloud computing reference model, a set of
documented technical requirements, and a list of identified gaps in standards, guidance, and
technology.
1.4 Document Organization
Consistent with the NIST Cloud Computing program strategy, the roadmap focuses on both
strategic and tactical objectives related to cloud computing. The strategic roadmap elements can be
characterized as “high-priority technical areas” which are enablers for cloud computing in both the
short and long term. The tactical work not only supports strategic goals, but is intended to support
cloud adopters in the interim deployment period as the cloud computing model is maturing.
This initial release of the roadmap special publication consists of two volumes.
Volume I is aimed at interested parties who wish to gain a general understanding and overview of
the background, purpose, context, work, results, and next steps of the USG Cloud Computing
Technology Roadmap initiative. Volume I reflects the collective inputs of USG agencies through
the Federal CIO Council-sponsored Cloud Computing Standards and Technology Working Group.
Volume I, High-Priority Requirements to Further USG Cloud Computing Adoption, frames the
discussion and introduces the roadmap in terms of:
• Prioritized strategic and tactical requirements that must be met for USG agencies to further
cloud adoption;
• Interoperability, portability, and security standards, guidelines, and technology that must be in
place to satisfy these requirements; and
• Recommended list of Priority Action Plans (PAPs) as candidates for development and
implementation, through voluntary self-tasking by the cloud computing stakeholder community,
to support standards, guidelines, and technology development.
This volume, Volume II, Useful Information for Cloud Adopters, is designed to be useful at the
tactical level to those actively working on cloud computing initiatives, including but not limited to,
US government cloud adopters. Volume II summarizes the work completed to date, explains the
assessment findings based on this work, and highlights how these findings support the key
requirements in the roadmap introduced in Volume I.
The Executive Summary of this volume includes a chart that shows the correlation between the set
of high-priority USG requirements presented in Volume I, and the NIST projects and public
working group efforts and findings summarized in Volume II.
The remainder of Volume II is organized into the following sections: Section 2 presents the NIST
cloud computing definition and reference architecture. Section 3 presents USG cloud computing
requirements through business use cases and technical use cases. Section 4 summarizes cloud
computing technology standards and gap analysis. Section 5 discusses cloud computing security and
presents a list of security impediments and corresponding mitigations.

4
A third volume, Technical Considerations for USG Cloud Computing Deployment Decisions, is
under development, and in keeping with the NIST transparent and collaborative process, is currently
available as a working document. Volume III is being developed as an interagency project through
the Federal Cloud Computing Standards and Technology Working Group, and will leverage the
NIST-led cloud computing program public working group process. Volume III is intended to serve
as a guide for decision makers who are planning and implementing cloud computing solutions by
explaining how the technical work and resources in Volume II can be applied, consistent with the
Federal Cloud Computing Strategy “Decision Framework for Cloud Migration.” The current
version of the working document defines and proposes a methodology for defining a representative
sample of common cloud computing planning and deployment scenarios, presents the initial
candidate set of 12, presents a process for applying the technical work, and proof-of-concept
examples of how this can be accomplished. Volume III was initiated in parallel, but is logically
dependent on the technical work contained in Volume II, and will necessarily be completed and
presented as part of the roadmap special publication in a subsequent release.
The Volume I and Volume II draft special publications, as well as the working document under
development as Volume III, are publically available through the NIST ITL Cloud Computing Web
site, as are all of the NIST Cloud Computing special publications and work-in-progress documents,

5
2 NIST Cloud Computing Definition and Reference Architecture
Cloud computing is an emerging computing model which has evolved as a result of the maturity of
underlying prerequisite technologies. There are differences in perspective as to when a set of
underlying technologies becomes a “cloud” model. In order to categorize cloud computing services,
and to expect some level of consistent characteristics to be associated with the services, cloud
adopters need a consistent frame of
reference. The NIST Cloud Computing
Reference Architecture and Taxonomy
document defines a standard reference
architecture and taxonomy that provide the
USG agencies with a common and
consistent frame of reference for comparing
cloud services from different service
providers when selecting and deploying
cloud services to support their mission
requirements. At a certain level of
abstraction, a cloud adopter does not need to
repeatedly interpret the technical
representation of cloud services available
from different vendors. Rather the use of a
common reference architecture by the cloud
service providers can be an efficient tool
that ensures consistent categorization of the
services offered.
2.1 Revisiting the Definition
This document uses the NIST SP 800-145,
The NIST Cloud Computing Definition, to
explain characteristics of cloud computing.
For the convenience of the reader, the
following is excerpted from NIST SP 800-
145:
Cloud computing is a model for enabling
convenient, on-demand network access to a
shared pool of configurable computing
resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage,
applications, and services) that can be
rapidly provisioned and released with
minimal management effort or service
provider interaction.
This definition lists five essential
characteristics that are common among all
cloud computing services:
Highlights: The NIST cloud computing
definition identifies three distinct service models,
i.e., Software as a Service, Platform as a Service,
and Infrastructure as a Service.
In late 2010, the NIST Cloud Computing
Reference Architecture project team surveyed
and completed an analysis of existing cloud
computing reference models, and developed a
vendor-neutral reference architecture which
extends the NIST cloud computing definition.
This effort leveraged a collaborative process
through the NIST Cloud Computing Reference
Architecture and Taxonomy working group.
Through a discussion and validation process, the
NIST cloud computing reference architecture
project team and working group analyzed the
intricacies of different types of cloud services and
confirmed the need for “Clear and Consistently
Categorized Cloud Services” - NIST USG Cloud
Computing Technology Roadmap Volume I,
Requirement 4.
The NIST cloud computing definition and
reference architecture provides a technical basis
for discussing “Frameworks to support federated
community clouds” - Volume I, Requirement 5.
The companion NIST cloud computing taxonomy
effort has also identified the need for: “Technical
specification for high quality service level
agreements – Volume I, Requirement 3, and
Define and implemented cloud service metrics –
Volume I, Requirement 10.”
See NIST Special Publication 800-145, A NIST
Definition of Cloud Computing, and NIST
Special Publication 500-292, NIST Cloud
Computing Reference Architecture.

6
On-demand self-service: A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such as
server time and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with
each service’s provider.
• Broad network access: Capabilities are available over the network and accessed through
standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms (e.g.,
mobile phones, laptops, and personal digital assistants [PDAs]).
• Resource pooling: The provider’s computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers
using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned
and reassigned according to consumer demand. There is a sense of location independence in that
the subscriber generally has no control or knowledge over the exact location of the provided
resources but may be able to specify location at a higher level of abstraction (e.g., country, state,
or data center). Examples of resources include storage, processing, memory, network
bandwidth, and virtual machines.
• Rapid elasticity: Capabilities can be rapidly and elastically provisioned, in some cases
automatically, to quickly scale out and rapidly released to quickly scale in. To the consumer, the
capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can be purchased in any
quantity at any time.
• Measured Service: Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by
leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service
(e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts). Resource usage can be
monitored, controlled, and reported, providing transparency for both the provider and consumer
of the utilized service.
Service Models
Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS): The capability provided to the consumer to use the provider’s
applications running on a cloud infrastructure. The applications are accessible from various client
devices through a thin client interface such as a Web browser (e.g., Web-based email). The
consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network,
servers, operating systems, storage, or even individual application capabilities, with the possible
exception of limited user-specific application configuration settings.
Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS): The capability provided to the consumer is to deploy onto the
cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquired applications created using programming
languages and tools supported by the provider. The consumer does not manage or control the
underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, or storage, but has
control over the deployed applications and possibly application hosting environment configurations.
Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): The capability provided to the consumer is to provision
processing, storage, networks, and other fundamental computing resources where the consumer is
able to deploy and run arbitrary software, which can include operating systems and applications.
The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over
the operating systems, storage, deployed applications, and possibly limited control of select
networking components (e.g., host firewalls).

7
Deployment Models
Based on how exclusive the cloud infrastructure is operated and made available to a consumer,
cloud services can also be categorized by a series of deployment models:
Private cloud: The cloud infrastructure is operated solely for an organization. It may be managed by
the organization or a third party and may exist on premise or off premise.
Community cloud: The cloud infrastructure is shared by several organizations and supports a
specific community that has shared concerns (e.g., mission, security requirements, policy,
and compliance considerations). It may be managed by the organizations or a third party and
may exist on premise or off premise.
Public cloud: The cloud infrastructure is made available to the general public or a large industry
group and is owned by an organization selling cloud services.
Hybrid cloud: The cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more clouds (private, community,
or public) that remain unique entities but are bound together by standardized or proprietary
technology that enables data and application portability (e.g., cloud bursting for load
balancing between clouds).
2.2 NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture
The NIST cloud computing reference architecture is a logical extension to the NIST cloud
computing definition. This extension provides a common frame of reference to help USG and other
cloud computing stakeholders to:
• Gain a further understanding of the technical and operational intricacies of cloud computing;
• Communicate cloud consumers requirements precisely;
• Categorize and compare cloud services objectively; and
• Analyze security, interoperability, and portability requirements systematically in order to better
inform solution implementations.
The reference architecture describes a conceptual model comprising abstract architectural elements
and their relations or interactions, such as
• Cloud computing actors and how they interact with each other in their activities;
• System components and how these components are orchestrated to deliver the computing
services;
• Management functionalities that are required to support the life cycle of operations; and
• Other cross-cutting aspects such as security and privacy associated with these elements.
The reference architecture is a high-level, abstract model not tied to any specific cloud technology
or vendor product, that focuses on the requirements of “what” cloud services provide and not on
“how to” design and implement these services.

8
The reference architecture also provides a companion cloud computing taxonomy detailing the
definitions and relationships of a control vocabulary.
A cloud solution provider may use this reference architecture to guide the development of real
architectures from different viewpoints (such as application architecture, middleware architecture,
data architecture, and network architecture), given constraints imposed by the organization’s
operational and technical environments. The reference architecture has a direct benefit for the cloud
consumer as well. By mapping the various cloud solution products to the architectural components
defined in the reference architecture, a cloud consumer can understand and compare cloud service
offerings and make informed decisions. For other stakeholders, such as academia and Standards
Development Organizations (SDOs), the reference architecture can help frame issues and provide a
common baseline for research.
As described above, the NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture Project Team surveyed and
completed an initial analysis of existing cloud computing reference architectures and reference
models. On this basis, the project team developed a straw man model of architectural concepts. This
effort leveraged a collaborative process from the NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture
and Taxonomy Working Group, active between November 2010 and April 2011. This process
involved broad participation from the industry, academic, SDOs, and private and public sector
cloud adopters. The project team iteratively revised the reference model by incorporating comments
and feedback received from the working group. This section summarizes version 1.0 of the
reference architecture and taxonomy and highlights the changes brought upon during the final
editing process for this document.
2.2.1 Conceptual Model
Figure 1 presents the NIST cloud computing reference architecture, which identifies the major
actors, their activities, and their functions in cloud computing. The diagram depicts a generic high-
level architecture and is intended to facilitate the understanding of the requirements, uses,
characteristics, and standards of cloud computing.
The reference architecture displayed in Figure 1 is an updated version based on additional public
comments received in the revision process for this document. Through the RA/TAX Public
Working Group process, this new model has been verified and approved by its members. The
principal difference between the original reference architecture (found in NIST 500-292) and the
one in this document is the change in the position of the “Security” and “Privacy” components.
Security and Privacy were originally identified as cross-cutting concerns and items that are shared
responsibilities for each cloud computing actor, therefore the placement of Security and Privacy as a
backplane to the cloud computing reference architecture is an appropriate change to the model.

9
Figure 1: The Conceptual Reference Model
2.2.2 Cloud Computing Actors
As shown in Figure 1, the NIST cloud computing reference architecture defines five major actors:
cloud consumer, cloud provider, cloud carrier, cloud auditor, and cloud broker. Each actor is an
entity (a person or an organization) that participates in a transaction or process or performs tasks in
cloud computing.
2.2.2.1 Cloud Consumer
The cloud-consumer is the principal stakeholder for the cloud computing service. A cloud-consumer
represents a person or organization that maintains a business relationship with, and uses the service
from a cloud-provider. A cloud-consumer browses the service catalog from a cloud-provider,
requests the appropriate service, sets up service contracts with the cloud-provider, and uses the
service. The cloud-consumer may be billed for the service provisioned, and needs to arrange
payments accordingly. Cloud-consumers need SLAs to specify the technical performance
requirements fulfilled by a cloud-provider. SLAs can cover terms regarding the quality of service,
security, and remedies for performance failures.
SaaS applications are made accessible via a network to the SaaS consumers. The consumers of SaaS
can be organizations that provide their members with access to software applications, end users who
directly use software applications, or software application administrators who configure
applications for end users. SaaS consumers can be billed based on the number of end users, the time
of use, the network bandwidth consumed, the amount of data stored, or the duration of stored data.

10
PaaS consumers employ the tools and execution resources provided by cloud providers to develop,
test, deploy, and manage the operation of PaaS applications hosted in a cloud environment. PaaS
consumers can be application developers who design and implement application software,
application testers who run and test applications in a cloud-based environment, application
deployers who publish applications into the cloud, and application administrators who configure,
monitor, and manage applications deployed in a cloud. PaaS consumers can be billed according to
the number of PaaS users, the processing, storage, and network resources consumed by the PaaS
application, and the duration of the platform usage.
IaaS clouds provide cloud consumers with virtual computers, network-accessible storage, network
infrastructure components, and other fundamental computing resources, on which IaaS consumers
can deploy and run arbitrary software. IaaS can be used by system developers, system
administrators, and IT managers who are interested in creating, installing, monitoring, and
managing services and applications deployed in an IaaS cloud. IaaS consumers can be billed
according to the amount or duration of the resources consumed, such as CPU hours used by virtual
computers, volume and duration of data stored, network bandwidth consumed, or the number of IP
addresses used for certain intervals.
2.2.2.2 Cloud Provider
A cloud provider is the entity (a person or an organization) responsible for making a service
available to interested parties. A cloud provider acquires and manages the computing infrastructure
required for providing the services, runs the cloud software that provides the services, and makes
the arrangements to deliver the cloud services to cloud consumers through network access.
For SaaS, the cloud provider deploys, configures, maintains, and updates the operation of the
software applications on a cloud infrastructure. The SaaS cloud provider is mostly responsible for
managing the applications, security, and the cloud infrastructure, while the SaaS cloud consumer
has limited administrative control of the applications.
For PaaS, the cloud provider manages the computing infrastructure for the platform and runs the
cloud software that provides the components of the platform, such as runtime software execution
stack, databases, and other middleware components. The PaaS cloud provider typically also
supports the development, deployment, and management process of the PaaS cloud consumer by
providing tools such as integrated development environments (IDEs), development versions of
cloud software, software development kits (SDKs), and deployment and management tools. The
PaaS cloud consumer has control over the applications and possibly over some of the hosting
environment settings, but has no or limited access to the infrastructure underlying the platform such
as network, servers, operating systems (OSs), or storage.
For IaaS, the cloud provider acquires the physical computing resources underlying the service,
including the servers, networks, storage, and hosting infrastructure. The cloud provider runs the
cloud software necessary to render the necessary computing resources to the IaaS cloud consumer
through a set of service interfaces and computing resource abstractions, such as virtual machines
and virtual network interfaces. In return, the IaaS cloud consumer uses these computing resources,
such as a virtual computer, for fundamental computing needs. Compared to SaaS and PaaS
consumers, an IaaS consumer has access to more fundamental forms of computing resources and
thus has control over more software components in an application stack, including the OS. The IaaS

11
cloud provider, on the other hand, has control over the physical hardware and cloud software that
make the provisioning of these infrastructure services possible, for example, the physical servers,
network equipment, storage devices, host OS, and hypervisor software for virtualization.
A cloud provider’s activities span five major areas including service deployment, service
orchestration, cloud service management, security, and privacy.
2.2.2.3 Cloud Auditor
A cloud auditor is a party that can perform an independent examination of cloud service controls
with the intent to express an opinion thereon. Audits are performed to verify conformance to
standards through a review of objective evidence. A cloud auditor can evaluate the services
provided by a cloud provider such as security controls, privacy, and performance. There are many
reasons an organization (government or not) may have aspects of privacy evaluated by an auditor.
Auditing is especially important for federal agencies. The Federal Cloud Computing Strategy
document published in February 2011 pointed out that “agencies should include a contractual clause
enabling third parties to assess security controls of cloud providers.” Security controls are the
management, operational, and technical safeguards or countermeasures employed within an
organizational information system to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the
system and its information. For security auditing, a cloud auditor can make an assessment of the
security controls in the information system to determine the extent to which the controls are
implemented correctly, operating as intended, and producing the desired outcome with respect to
the security requirements for the system. The security auditing should also assess the compliance
with the specified regulation and with the security policy. For example, an auditor can be tasked
with ensuring that the correct policies are applied to data retention according to relevant rules for
the jurisdiction. The auditor may ensure that fixed content has not been modified and that the legal
and business data archival requirements have been satisfied.
A privacy audit can help federal agencies comply with applicable privacy laws and regulations
governing an individual’s privacy, and to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability of an
individual’s personal information at every stage of development and operation.
2.2.2.4 Cloud Broker
As cloud computing evolves, the integration of cloud services can be too complex for cloud
consumers to manage. A cloud consumer may request cloud services from a cloud broker, instead of
contacting a cloud provider directly. A cloud broker is an entity that manages the use, performance,
and delivery of cloud services and negotiates relationships between cloud providers and cloud
consumers.
In general, a cloud broker can provide services in three categories:
• Service Intermediation: A cloud broker enhances a given service by improving some specific
capability and providing value-added services to cloud consumers. The improvement can be
managing access to cloud services, identity management, performance reporting, enhanced
security, etc.

12
• Service Aggregation: A cloud broker combines and integrates multiple services into one or more
new services. The broker provides data integration and ensures the secure data movement
between the cloud consumer and multiple cloud providers.
• Service Arbitrage: Service arbitrage is similar to service aggregation except that the services
being aggregated are not fixed. Service arbitrage means a broker has the flexibility to choose
services from multiple agencies. The cloud broker, for example, can use a credit-scoring service
to measure and select an agency with the best score.
A Cloud Broker may provide services in two separate domains:
• Business and relationship support services (business intermediation).
• Technical support service (aggregation, arbitrage and technical intermediation), with a key focus
on handling interoperability issues among multiple providers.
Cloud Brokers may behave as Business brokers in some cases, Technical brokers in others or may
take on both roles.
A Business Cloud Broker is an entity that offers Cloud Consumers business and relationship
services to evaluate and select Cloud Providers based upon the consumer’s requirements. Business
brokerage does not offer technical broker-related capabilities to interact with Cloud Consumer data
in Cloud Provider environments. Business brokerage can be combined with or operate
independently of technical Brokerage services. They do not have any contact with the consumer’s
data migrated to the cloud, consumer operational processes in the cloud or consumer-based cloud
artifacts such as images, volumes or firewalls.
A Technical Cloud Broker is an entity that offers Cloud Consumers the capability to consistently
interact with the consumer’s operational processes, cloud artifacts and/or data residing in Cloud
Providers environments by aggregating services from multiple providers and adding a layer of
technical functionality that addresses consistent interface and interoperability issues. Technical
Brokerage does not offer business broker-related capabilities to evaluate and select Cloud Providers.
Technical brokerage can be combined with or operate independently of business brokerage services.
This individual will interact with the consumer’s operational processes, cloud artifacts and/or
consumer data by aggregating services from multiple providers and adding a layer of technical
functionality by addressing single-point-of-entry and interoperability issues.
A Technical Cloud Broker has two defining qualities which distinguish it from a Cloud Provider:
1. The Cloud Broker provides a single point of entry for managing multiple cloud services. The
key defining features that distinguish a Cloud Broker from a Cloud Service Provider are the
ability to provide a single consistent interface to multiple differing providers, whether the
interface is for business or technical purposes and to provide the Cloud Consumer with
complete transparency into the identity of the supporting Cloud Service Providers.
2. The Cloud Broker provides transparency to the Cloud Consumer on the identity of the Cloud
Providers in the background. A Cloud Broker will always allow the cloud Consumer a particular
level of transparency into the identity of the target Cloud Providers. An entity that provides
additional layers of functionality to only one Cloud Provider or does not allow transparency into
their underlying Cloud Providers will be considered an Intermediary Cloud Provider.

13
In both cases, the Cloud Brokers provide a single interface across multiple cloud service provider
targets, for business or technical services respectively. Combinations of technical and business
brokerage can be carried out by the same entity. Cloud Providers who operate in a Cloud Broker
role can provide brokerage services as well.
There are two classes of Cloud Providers - primary and intermediary. A Primary Cloud Provider is
an entity that provides the cloud consumer with a full stack of cloud services without relying on
other entities to provision particular functional service layers, whereas an Intermediary Cloud
Provider is a cloud provider that relies on one or more other cloud service providers to deliver
services to the cloud consumer, but does not provide the consumer with visibility into the
underlying cloud provider services in use. They may also provide additional layers of functionality
to only one Cloud Provider.
Basic Broker Model
Figure 2 shows a basic example of cloud brokerage. Depending upon the broker services rendered,
the brokerage can be business oriented, technically oriented or a combination of the two. Cross-
provider business services might include service catalogue lookups, subscription handling, customer
relation management, etc. and cross-provider technical services might include orchestration, load
management and cloud-bursting, integrated identity and authorization management, security
Brokerage and integrated security management, metrics retrieval, unified billing, cost and usage
reporting, etc.
Note that two key
characteristics of brokerage
are fulfilled:
• The Cloud Consumer
uses a single broker
interface to engage with
multiple providers.
• The Cloud Consumer
retains visibility into the
cloud service providers
they use through the
broker, either through the
broker, directly or both.
Figure 2: Cloud Broker Interactions

14
Intermediary Cloud Provider Example
Figure 3 below shows a simple example of an intermediary cloud provider interaction with a cloud
consumer. Both the broker and the intermediary provider have the capability to interact with
multiple cloud providers. However, the intermediary cloud provider presents only its service
interface to the cloud consumer and does not offer visibility into or control over any additional
cloud or non-cloud providers used in the creation of the service behind the scenes. Instead, the
intermediary cloud uses the additional providers as invisible components of its own service, which
is presented to the customer as an integrated offering.
2.2.2.5 Cloud Carrier
A cloud carrier acts as an intermediary that provides connectivity and transport of cloud services
between cloud consumers and cloud providers. Cloud carriers provide access to consumers through
network, telecommunication, and other access devices. For example, cloud consumers can obtain
cloud services through network access devices, such as desktop computers, laptops, mobile phones,
and other mobile Internet devices (MIDs). The distribution of cloud services is normally provided
by network and telecommunication carriers or a transport agent, where a transport agent refers to a
business organization that provides physical transport of storage media, such as high-capacity hard
drives.
Figure 3: Intermediary Cloud Provider Brokerage Example
2.2.2.6 Scope of Control between Provider and Consumer
The cloud provider and cloud consumer share the control of resources in a cloud system. As
illustrated in Figure 3, different service models affect an organization’s control over the

15
computational resources and thus what can be done in a cloud system. The figure shows these
differences using a classic software stack notation comprised of the application, middleware, and
OS layers. This analysis of delineation of controls over the application stack increases
understanding of the responsibilities of parties involved in managing the cloud application.
• The application layer includes software applications targeted at end users or programs. The
applications are used by SaaS consumers, or installed/managed/maintained by PaaS consumers,
IaaS consumers, and SaaS providers.
• The middleware layer provides software building blocks (e.g., libraries, database, and Java
virtual machine) for developing application software in the cloud. The middleware is used by
PaaS consumers, installed/managed/maintained by IaaS consumers or PaaS providers, and
hidden from SaaS consumers.
• The OS layer includes operating system and drivers, and is hidden from SaaS and PaaS
consumers. An IaaS cloud allows one or multiple guest OSs to run virtualized on a single
physical host. Generally, consumers have broad freedom to choose which OS is to be hosted
among all the OSs that could be supported by the cloud provider. The IaaS consumers should
assume full responsibility for the guest OS(s), while the IaaS provider controls the host OS.
Figure 4: Scope of Controls between Provider and Consumer
2.2.3 Architecture Components
This section describes the architectural elements with which cloud actors interact, including an
abstraction of the system components that orchestrate together to deliver the service capabilities, the
different deployment models of these infrastructure components, and the management activities
cloud providers engage in with cloud consumers.

16
2.2.3.1 Service Orchestration
Service Orchestration refers to the composition of system components to support the cloud provider
activities in arrangement, coordination, and management of
computing resources in order to provide cloud services to
cloud consumers. Figure 5 shows a generic stack diagram of
this composition that underlies the provisioning of cloud
services.
A three-layered model is used in this representation to depict
the grouping of the three types of system components that
cloud providers need to compose to deliver their services.
In the model shown in Figure 5, the top is the service layer,
where cloud providers define interfaces for cloud consumers
to access the computing services. Access interfaces of each
of the three service models are provided in this layer. It is
possible, though not necessary, that SaaS applications can
be built on top of PaaS components, and PaaS components
can be built on top of IaaS components. The optional
dependency relationships among SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS
components are represented graphically as components
stacking on each other; while the angling of the components
represents that each of the service component can stand by
itself. For example, a SaaS application can be implemented
and hosted on virtual machines from an IaaS cloud, or it can
be implemented directly on top of cloud resources without
using IaaS virtual machines.
The middle layer in the model is the resource abstraction
and control layer. This layer contains the system
components that cloud providers use to provide and manage access to the physical computing
resources through software abstraction. Examples of resource abstraction components include
software elements such as hypervisors, virtual machines, virtual data storage, and other computing
resource abstractions. The resource abstraction needs to ensure efficient, secure, and reliable usage
of the underlying physical resources. While virtual machine technology is commonly used at this
layer, other means of providing the necessary software abstractions are also possible. The control
aspect of this layer refers to the software components that are responsible for resource allocation,
access control, and usage monitoring. This is the software framework that ties together the
numerous underlying physical resources and their software abstractions to enable resource pooling,
dynamic allocation, and measured service. Various open source and proprietary cloud software are
examples of this type of middleware.
The lowest layer in the stack is the physical resource layer, which includes all the physical
computing resources. This layer includes hardware resources, such as computers (CPU and
memory), networks (routers, firewalls, switches, network links, and interfaces), storage components
(hard disks), and other physical computing infrastructure elements. It also includes facility
Figure 5: Cloud Provider –
Service Orchestration

17
resources, such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), power, communications, and
other aspects of the physical plant.
Following system architecture conventions, the horizontal positioning, i.e., the layering, in a model
represents dependency relationships – the upper layer components are dependent on adjacent lower
layer to function. The resource abstraction and control layer exposes virtual cloud resources on top
of the physical resource layer and supports the service layer where cloud services interfaces are
exposed to cloud consumers. Cloud consumers do not have direct access to the physical resources.
2.2.3.2 Cloud Service Management
Cloud Service Management includes all of the service-related functions that are necessary for the
management and operation of those services required by or proposed to cloud consumers. Cloud
service management can be described from the perspective of business support, provisioning and
configuration, and from the perspective of portability and interoperability requirements.
2.3 NIST Cloud Computing Taxonomy
The NIST Cloud Computing taxonomy was developed in conjunction with the reference
architecture and describes key cloud computing concepts, the relationships between these concepts,
and their given context. The taxonomy organizes the key concepts into four levels:
• Level 1: Role, which indicates a set of obligations and behaviors as conceptualized by the
associated actors in the context of cloud computing.
• Level 2: Activity, which entails the general behaviors or tasks associated to a specific role.
• Level 3: Component, which refers to the specific processes, actions, or tasks that must be
performed to meet the objective of a specific activity.
• Level 4: Sub-component, which presents a modular part of a component.
The taxonomy can be used as a source for developing a controlled vocabulary of cloud computing
terms that will provide an increased clarification and standardization of the cloud computing
terminology. Details about this taxonomy and the related vocabulary can be found on the NIST
cloud computing reference architecture and taxonomy collaboration site: http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-
cloud-computing/bin/view/CloudComputing/ReferenceArchitectureTaxonomy.

18
3 Cloud Computing Use Cases and Requirements
Although use cases have been traditionally employed as a system analysis tool that links the actors
to the system functions, the same methodology has also been widely used within business
architectures for such purposes as describing business processes of an enterprise, actors
corresponding to these processes, and organizational participants. Using well-defined elements such
as actors, conditions, and activity flows, a use case can systematically reveal the requirements and
constraints which can subsequently direct system architecture and design.
The NIST projects and working groups apply use case methodology to define business and
technical operational scenarios and requirements.
Business use cases document scenarios at the functional mission level. The use case describes the
business goal with no assumptions as to how cloud computing technology (deployment model
constraints) will be deployed to achieve that goal. These business use cases can then be explored by
walking through the considerations of planning and deploying candidate cloud computing service
and deployment model options, issues, and constraints. While this process has documented business
use cases that are in pilot or operational deployment stage, the objective of the Target focuses on
those business use cases that agencies have identified as an opportunity, but consider to be difficult
to implement, or have a perceived impediment to implementation.
The second case where use case methodology is applied is definition of technical use cases in the
Standards Acceleration to Jumpstart the Adoption of Cloud Computing (SAJACC) effort. These use
cases are designed to facilitate the qualitative testing of standards through the use of third-party
APIs implemented in adherence to candidate specifications and emerging standards. Of necessity,
each SAJACC use case represents a single activity, such as the deletion of data, and the actions
needed to successfully execute that activity (receive the request, respond to the request, execute the
request, etc.).
A business use case is decomposed into a list of high-level requirements, then into successively
more detailed requirements, until it can ultimately be mapped to technical requirements that are
required to identify and execute the appropriate SAJACC use cases.
3.1 Target Business Use Case and High-Level Requirements
The main objective of the NIST Cloud Computing Target Business Use Case (TBUC) Project is to
work with federal CIOs to identify and document application and service use cases for potential
migration to a cloud environment. As described in the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy, NIST is
working with agencies to define target business use cases that are complex, or have technical
hurdles or standards gaps that need to be overcome. The high-level requirements that are extracted
from the target business use cases are the primary deliverables for that project area.

19
At the time of this writing, the business use cases from agencies and departments summarized here
have perceived impediments or obstacles that prevent their immediate implementation or require
workarounds. These business use cases focus attention on the areas where technical and procedural
gaps are assessed and prioritized to propose recommendations for mitigation. After target business
use cases are developed, they are analyzed to
determine which business requirements are
pertinent to the cloud. These business
requirements are examined to determine their
relevance to security, portability, and
interoperability needs, and whether they are
mission-specific requirements or cross-cutting
requirements. The final step is to determine the
relationship of the business requirements to the
SAJACC technical use cases.
A template to capture target business use cases
was created and is described in the next section.
An initial portfolio of target business use cases
using this template was developed using two
methods. The most common approach is
documentation via interviews with agency and
department CIOs identified through the Federal
CIO Council Cloud Computing Executive
Steering Committee and Cloud First Task Force.
Information is gathered about the business use
case through information provided by agencies,
after which NIST-led interviews of key members
of the cloud effort are conducted to flesh out the
business use case and identify areas of concern.
Alternatively, participants in the NIST-chaired
public Cloud Computing Business Use Case
Working Group (CCBUCWG) volunteer to
document and obtain agency sponsorship of
business use cases that might be of interest.
Sponsoring federal agencies develop the business
use cases and submit them to the project team as
contributions. As business use cases are drafted,
they are presented to the Cloud Computing
Business Use Case Working Group for review
and comment.
As requirements are identified and areas of
research are prioritized, NIST works with federal agencies, industry, SDOs, and academia to
identify options for addressing challenges, using the vendor-neutral reference architecture and
taxonomy as a frame of reference. This research results in the definition of new or augmented
standards, guidance, and technology requirements where appropriate. The portfolio of target
business use cases can also be used by Federal CIOs to aid them in considering their projects. As
Highlights: Target business use cases of
federal agencies were captured to
understand security, interoperability, and
portability requirements. These business
use cases and the cross-cutting
requirements extracted were developed as
part of the iterative and complementary
process used to identify the strategic
requirements in Volume 1 of the Technical
Roadmap.
Specifically, this section summarizes the
use cases which were used as the basis for
defining the following high-priority
requirements listed in the NIST USG
Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap
Volume I high-priority requirements:
 “Solutions for High-priority Security
Requirements” - Requirement 2;
 “Frameworks to support federated
community clouds” Requirement 5;
 “Defined unique government regulatory
requirements, technology gaps, and
solutions”- Requirement 7:
 “Collaborative parallel ‘future cloud’
development initiatives”- Requirement 8;
 “Defined and implemented reliability
design goals” – Requirement 9;
 “Defined and implemented cloud service
metrics” – Requirement 10.

20
federal CIOs identify new business use cases, it is helpful to the broader community to add them to
this portfolio. As the portfolio of business use cases is expanded, trends and commonalities become
more apparent, permitting prioritization of research areas.
3.1.1 Business Use Case Template
In order to identify common themes across business use cases, a template for documenting business
use cases was created with input from the CCBUCWG. The template was designed to organize how
the business use case was documented, ensure that the documenter articulated how the project met
the NIST definition for cloud computing, and to encourage consideration of the various elements of
the NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture.
The template consists of five major sections: description, background, cloud computing concept of
operations, analysis, and concerns and challenges. The description is a brief, one-paragraph
summary of the purpose and goals of the business use case. The background provides an
explanation of how the business use case is currently solved, along with any definitions and
descriptions needed to understand the business use case generally. The cloud computing concept of
operations examines how a cloud implementation would work and identifies the key requirements
that a cloud implementation would need to meet.
The analysis section incorporates the NIST definition of cloud computing and the reference
architecture, leading the documenter to consider the service model, delivery model, the five
essential characteristics, and the NIST focus areas of security, portability, and interoperability.
Finally, any concerns or challenges expressed by the sponsor are captured.
3.1.2 Business Use Case Summaries
3.1.2.1 NIST IT Service Management
Delivery Model: Private Cloud
Service Model: SaaS
Agency: National Institute of Standards and Technology
FISMA2
Impact Level: Moderate
NIST is interested in moving its service ticketing system to the cloud as part of a larger move to an
IT Service Management model for providing services to end users. One of the main drivers for
moving the trouble ticket system to the cloud is to allow IT to focus its resources on applications
that directly implement functional aspects of the NIST mission. Moving non-core applications to
the cloud eliminates the need to patch and update software and servers.
2
Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) of 2002.

21
A longer-term goal of this implementation is to enable other service groups (such as
telecommunications, security, and building maintenance) within NIST to use this tool as well. In
this way, a single service request can be routed to appropriate service providers within NIST in a
seamless way. The use of a cloud application would provide flexibility in the timing of deployments
and the availability of system resources for testing and training.
3.1.2.2 Census Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
Delivery Model: Private Cloud
Service Model: SaaS
Agency: United States Bureau of the Census
FISMA Impact Level: Moderate
The United States Bureau of the Census proposes to use cloud technology to comply with the
Telework Enhancement Act of 2010 and to improve productivity by eliminating the need to use the
SafeBoot device encryption tool. The benefits of this approach are in realizing a decreased cost of
delivering computing and support services, creating a mobile workforce capable of using a variety
of devices, and improving security by limiting the loss of sensitive data through the loss or theft of a
mobile device or by malicious software. Specifically, the use of a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
(VDI) will reduce the high cost associated with providing and maintaining desktop service. The US
Census expects to use a private cloud environment for its cloud effort.
Securing sensitive data is critical to enabling telework. By running virtual machines on a server and
ensuring that all data resides on network storage, data can be properly secured. Finally, end-user
compliance with security policies can be improved through managed personalization of the desktop
environment.
The security infrastructure that enables single-sign-on and two-factor authentication is also an
essential part of the solution and will be deployed in the same private cloud.
3.1.2.3 USAID Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
Delivery Model: Community Cloud
Service Model: SaaS
Agency: US Agency for International Development
USAID is interested in migrating to the cloud to provide IT services for its users distributed across
the globe. The plan (in-progress) is to move email, office productivity, and some business
applications into a cloud-based infrastructure and implement a cloud-based VDI to enable secure
access to the services. This migration will decrease the cost of delivering computing and support
services, create a mobile workforce that will use a variety of devices, and improve security by
limiting the loss of sensitive data through the loss or theft of a mobile device or by malicious
software. Specifically, the VDI will reduce the high cost associated with providing and maintaining
desktop service, and by moving IT services into the cloud, help to reduce the need and the cost

22
associated with developing and maintaining data centers. USAID expects a hybrid cloud
environment that uses both private cloud and community cloud for its cloud effort. The security
infrastructure that enables single-sign-on and two-factor authentication is also an essential part of
the solution and will be deployed in the same private cloud.
3.1.2.4 USAID Office Productivity
Service Model: SaaS
Agency: US Agency for International Development
FISMA Impact Level: Moderate Internal, Low External
USAID OCIO plans to use Google Apps service for government to provide cloud-based email and
document management service for USAID users. This service is expected to be deployed in an
outsourced community cloud and accessed through the VDI or directly through the Internet. The
other business applications are expected to be deployed in an on-site private cloud at the beginning
and will later be migrated into an outsourced private cloud. These cloud-based applications will be
accessed through the cloud-based VDI. The security infrastructure that enables single-sign-on, two-
factor authentication, and identity management is an essential part of the solution and will be
deployed in the same on-site private cloud.
3.1.2.5 FGDC Geospatial Cloud
Delivery Model: Community Cloud, Public Cloud
Service Model: PaaS
Agency: Federal Geospatial Data Committee
FISMA Impact Level: Moderate and Low, depending on need.
The Federal Geographic Data Committee and the General Services Administration (GSA) Cloud
Computing Program Management Office operate the GeoCloud project on behalf of a wide range of
federal agencies to explore the impact and possibilities of a geospatial computing-oriented cloud.
The initiative seeks to define and investigate cloud savings, best practices, and lessons learned by
migrating, benchmarking, and operating a set of ten existing public-access geospatial projects from
six currently participating agencies –US Geologic Survey (USGS), National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Bureau of the Census, Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), Department of Agriculture (USDA), and Department of the Interior (DOI) with interest from
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The overall plan is to define, construct, and maintain a set of common geospatial platforms to
support the project, using a joint agency platform model. Once platforms are in place and under
maintenance, each project team will evaluate their application on its matching platform, document
the steps needed to ensure security and performance, and track lessons learned along the way. To
date, two platforms have been defined; one has been hardened and constructed and operates on

23
Amazon’s AWS public cloud. The project teams are beginning their exploration and sandbox phase
to discover and document the processes needed to maintain these existing applications in the cloud.
Some agency geospatial applications, targeted for the public cloud, have either data storage or
processing needs that appear to make them more cost-effective in a community cloud setting. As a
subsidiary use case, these applications will be piloted on similar shared platforms in a community
facility housed in the US Geologic Survey.
3.1.2.6 NOAA Email
Service Model: SaaS
Agency: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
NOAA envisions using a cloud-based Unified Messaging Service (UMS) to replace NOAA’s
existing in-house-hosted email and calendaring systems and its installation of Blackberry Enterprise
Server. The UMS would decrease system maintenance responsibilities for NOAA, and provide
users with new features as they become available in the cloud-based solution. Additionally, NOAA
expects to expand collaboration capabilities through increased use of integrated messaging and
collaboration tools, and, optionally, to obtain archival and eDiscovery capabilities.
3.1.2.7 FAA E-Discovery
Service Model: SaaS
Agency: Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Cloud Computing Working Group
The FAA, in conjunction with the Federal Cloud First Task Force and other federal agencies, is
seeking a cloud-based eDiscovery solution, motivated by the agency’s moving email to a cloud-
based solution. This solution would be composed of an archive, identification and collection
capability, data preservation capability, and the processing and export of content. The objective is to
implement a cloud-based eDiscovery solution that can analyze both in-house and cloud-based email
systems because of the time that the project will take to migrate to the FAA’s email from in-house
systems to the cloud. During the migration of email, the ability to respond to eDiscovery and FOIA
requests is necessary.

24
3.1.2.8 In-depth Email
Delivery Model: All
Service Model: All
Agency: N/A
FISMA Impact Level: Moderate, Low
The currently available collaboration solutions tend to fall into one of two categories. The first
category is a single client-based solution (e.g., Outlook/Exchange, Zimbra, Mobile.me) and
provides a number of integrated functions within the client interface (e.g., email, calendar, address
book, etc.). The second category is an amalgamation of a variety of separate tools, sometimes
integrated within the mail client framework using plugins (e.g., Thunderbird supports a variety of
calendar plug-ins).
In the majority of cases, Email/User Collaboration tools are services hosted within the organization
and are usually designed to connect to user client systems. Web-based email, while a frequent
functional offering is typically a casual use offering (leveraged when users travelling or it is
inconvenient to access a work system). Despite its current low utilization, Web-based systems offer
enhanced security and administrative controls. These solutions are pertinent to a Secure/Classified
environment and adoption is expected to increase.
As laptops and ‘Smart’ mobile devices become more common, there is more pressure to make the
user collaboration tools work within this extended usage paradigm. Ensuring that data and security
models are adhered to in the mobile environment is critical.
3.1.3 Business Use Case Analysis
Mission requirements are extracted from the business use cases. Mission requirements are high-
level requirements that must be met to successfully support the primary goals of the business use
case. Those cross-cutting system requirements which relate to security, portability, and
interoperability are also identified. These system requirements are used to inform high-level
strategic USG requirements in cloud adoption. Further tactical efforts, such as technical requirement
analysis from the SAJACC effort and cloud security impediments analysis, benefit from these
source requirements.

25
3.1.3.1 Mission Requirements
The portfolios of target business use cases help to identify the following mission requirements in
USG agency migration to cloud computing:
Requirement Description
eDiscovery Meet eDiscovery requirements, identify electronic records meeting search
criteria, and retrieve both the records and their metadata. Archives of
responsive Electronically Stored Information (ESI) such as documents and
spreadsheets should be portable among eDiscovery solutions. These ESI must
retain metadata during migration between ESI-producing platforms.
FOIA Meet the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for
identifying and responding to records requests. As with eDiscovery, archives
of responsive ESI must be portable between eDiscovery solutions, and
metadata should be retained when migrating from one ESI-producing platform
to another.
Email Move agency email services to the cloud to provide improved operating
efficiency, in some cases consolidating several different email installations
into a single cloud-based solution.
Workforce
Mobility
Provide mobile access to all IT services, enabling secure access from any
device and any place where there is sufficient network bandwidth.
Collaboration Enable secure sharing and authoring of documents with partners, including
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and foreign governments. The
purpose is to allow the creation of common workspaces either within the
agency, across agencies, or with partners of agencies on a project-by-project
basis.
Common
Geospatial
Platform
Provide agencies with the ability to create and deploy geospatial applications
rapidly and efficiently.
Security Audit
Information
Collection
Enable the capture, identification, and mitigation of security events. Security
audit information needs to be captured at both a high level for monitoring
purposes and at a level of detail sufficient to allow forensic analysis of any
security incidents that occur. Furthermore, it is necessary to retain the
information for a time sufficient to meet the forensic analysis needs of the
cloud service procured.

26
Requirement Description
Telework
Enhancement
Act Compliance
Provide secure telework options to employees. While the Workforce Mobility
mission requirement is concerned with enabling appropriate IT services to be
accessed from anywhere on any device, this mission requirement applies to
allowing employees to work from home, providing agencies with greater
control over data and security.
Provisioning,
Monitoring,
Trouble
Ticketing
Integration
Enable integration of IT support and monitoring tools for both traditional
systems and cloud-based systems. Provisioning users through a common
interface is necessary to avoid increased maintenance burdens as the number of
cloud systems an agency has subscribed to increases. Trouble ticket
management and visibility would encounter similar problems as the number of
systems increases.
Table 2: Mission Requirements from Target Business Use Cases

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3.1.3.2 Mapping Mission Requirements to Business Use Cases
The analysis of the business use cases begins with the identification of mission requirements that
are distilled from a closer look at the primary goals of each business use case. They address not only
what the business use case is trying to achieve, but also those elements deemed particularly
important. The table below shows how different mission requirements can be traced to specific
targeted business use cases.
Business Use Cases
NIST
ITSM
Census
VDI
USAID
VDI
USAID Office
Productivity
FGDC
Geospatial
NOAA
Email
FAA
eDiscovery
In-depth
Email
MissionRequirements
eDiscovery x
FOIA X
Email x x
Workforce
Mobility
x x x X
Collaboration x
Common
Geospatial
Platform
x
Security Audit
Information
Collection
x
Telework
Enhancement
Act Compliance
x
Provisioning,
Monitoring,
Trouble
Ticketing
Integration
x x x X x
Table 3: Business Use Cases and Mission Requirements
The next step of this analysis is construction of a matrix to correlate mission requirements to system
requirements. System requirements are composed of requirements classified as cross-cutting
elements, necessary in different cloud adoption scenarios and consequently considered an evolving
product of business use case analysis. System requirements are critical in order for the mission
requirements to be fully realized within the framework of the USG Cloud Computing Technology
Roadmap. Cross-cutting system requirements can be broken down further into the generalized
categories of security, interoperability, and portability.
Throughout the process of capturing mission requirements in each use case and decomposing them
into system requirements, the roadmap priorities for USG cloud computing adoption are reassessed.
BUC mission and cross-cutting system requirements are instrumental in determining the highest
priorities to further USG Cloud Computing Technology Adoption. Preliminary analysis has
prompted and paved the way for further work to:

28
• Identify and provide solutions for high-priority security requirements (Requirement 2, Volume
I);
• Develop frameworks to support federated community cloud, (Requirement 5, Volume I);
• Define unique government regulatory requirements, technology gaps, solutions (Requirement 7,
Volume I);
• Identify the collaborative parallel strategic “future cloud” development initiatives
(Requirement 8, Volume I);
• Define and implement reliability design goals (Requirement 9, Volume I); and
• Define and implement cloud service metrics (Requirement 10, Volume I).
The following sections provide illustrative examples that originate in the targeted business use cases
for each category: security, interoperability, and portability.

29
3.1.3.3 Cross-Cutting Security System Requirements
Security system requirements include those that pertain to information security. These include
protection of information and information systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure,
disruption, modification, or destruction to help ensure integrity, confidentiality, and availability.
Requirement/Details Description
1 Identity and
Credential
Access
Management
A means of integrating Identity Management in the cloud with the cloud
consumer’s Identity Management solution is necessary. Agencies that
participated in the collection of business use cases typically require that a user
be authenticated by the agency network, at which time access to cloud
applications is provided. Cloud-based applications should be integrated into an
identity management framework to avoid separate management of user
identities in the cloud.
Single Sign-On
(SSO)
Upon authentication through the cloud consumer’s identity management
solution, users should be able to access all cloud services without further
authentication. Analysis of the use cases shows that systems with needs to
migrate to the cloud tend to be integrated with a single sign-on (SSO)
infrastructure. To prevent the loss of current functionality, the ability to
integrate with an agency’s SSO solution is necessary.
Strong
Authentication
Most of the analyzed business use cases were for applications that were
considered to be of a FISMA impact level of moderate, necessitating the use of
strong authentication. Cloud providers will need to provide strong
authentication to support systems with a FISMA impact level of moderate,
such as two-factor authentication techniques using disconnected tokens or
Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD)12-compliant Common
Access Cards,.
User
Provisioning
Cloud providers need to deliver standards-based APIs to allow the
provisioning of users, either individually or in bulk. As the number of cloud
services to which a cloud consumer is subscribed increases, the time spent on
user maintenance will rapidly increase without the availability of interfaces
that allow user management to be automated.
Access Policy
Management
A standard policy management interface is needed to permit creation, deletion,
and maintenance of access policies from a standardized management tool.
Well-maintained policies are a necessity for maintaining secure systems. As
the number of cloud services to which a cloud consumer has subscribed
increases, maintenance of access policies across cloud services becomes
difficult without a standard interface to permit the use of a standard
management tool.

30
2 Security Audit
Information
Security audit data must be maintained for every aspect of the cloud service, as
defined by contract and dependent on the impact level of the service, for use in
the analysis of security incidents when they are discovered. High-level
summaries of security audit information provide enough information to
determine when an event took place, and detailed logs provide the information
needed to perform a forensic analysis of the incident.
Availability of
High-level
Security Audit
Data
High-level security data must be captured and transferred to the cloud
consumer on a regular basis, as defined within the contract. Capturing security
audit information is required by Federal Information Processing Standards
(FIPS) 200. These data are used to analyze security events of interest. While
this information is readily available in traditional environments, the multi-
tenant nature of cloud services requires additional cooperation between the
cloud provider and the cloud consumer.
Availability of
Detailed
Security Audit
Data
Detailed security data must be captured and stored by the cloud provider so
that forensic analysis of security breaches can be undertaken in cooperation
with the cloud consumer. The need to capture detailed security audit
information at the level required to carry out a forensic analysis is required by
FIPS 200. The multi-tenant nature of cloud services requires cooperation
between the cloud provider and the cloud consumer(s) affected by a security
incident.
Security Audit
Data Format
and Exchange
Both high-level and detailed security audit data must be provided in a
standards-based format so that cloud consumers could analyze the data. These
data would be transferred at intervals defined in the contract. FIPS 200
requires that security audit information be captured and used for analysis of
security incidents.
Security Audit
Data Retention
The cloud provider shall retain security audit data per cloud consumer
requirements. FIPS 200 requires that security audit information is to be
retained for a period of time sufficient to perform incident investigation in the
event of a security breach. A cloud consumer needs to be notified of all
security breaches that occur within the systems providing the cloud service.
Security Audit
Data
Monitoring
The cloud provider needs to monitor security audit data with the frequency
needed to rapidly identify and respond to security incidents, and notify the
consumer promptly in the event of a security breach. In addition to security
breaches arising in contracted cloud services or in traditional systems operated
by the cloud consumer, the multi-tenant nature of cloud services means that
security incidents may originate with another consumer at that cloud provider.

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3 Encryption Encryption is required for systems that are assigned a FISMA impact level of
moderate or above. Most of the business use cases have been identified as
systems that have a FISMA impact level of moderate. FISMA requires
encryption of data, both at rest and in transit, to meet security requirements of
moderate and above systems. In this way, even if devices are lost or stolen or
transmissions intercepted, data remains protected.
Encryption of
Data at Rest
Systems at FISMA moderate or higher shall encrypt data using FIPS 140-2-
validated encryption modules. Keys must be managed separately from data and
require higher privileges. Encryption keys shall be changed on a regular basis,
decrypting data and re-encrypting with the new key. To protect mobile devices
from loss or theft, FISMA requires that data be encrypted if any of the systems
on the mobile device have an impact rating of moderate.
Encryption of
Data in Transit
Encryption of data in transit is a FISMA requirement for moderate impact
systems. This encryption protects data, including usernames and passwords,
from interception. This is especially important when using untrusted network
environments, such as open wireless access points at coffee shops, or public
computer terminals in a library.
Multi-tenant
Encryption
Where encryption keys are required, the cloud provider must provide a FIPS
140-2-validated encryption algorithm for cloud consumers to establish their
own encryption keys rather than the encryption keys. The cloud consumer
remains responsible for establishing the encryption key whether or not the
cloud provider is acting as a cloud broker. In the multi-tenant environment of
cloud systems, not only does data need to be protected from other cloud
consumers but from the cloud provider as well.

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4 Physical
Security
FISMA security standards not only apply to security protocols
implementable using hardware or software, but also to the physical
security of the facilities used to house the equipment and services.
Physical security includes all measures whose purpose is to prevent
physical access to a building, resource, or stored information. These
physical security requirements apply to third parties engaged by cloud
brokers.
Inspection of
Premises
The cloud provider shall make all facilities involved in providing the
cloud service available for inspection by the cloud consumer or the
cloud auditor, as required by FISMA. Cloud service implementations
using third parties to provide some aspect of a service must allow
inspection of the third party premises. This permits the evaluation of the
physical security to meet FISMA moderate impact security
requirements.
Physical Data
Center
Location
The cloud provider shall limit the facilities in which the cloud
consumer’s data reside to the continental United States when requested.
Limiting the physical data center location simplifies meeting FISMA
moderate requirements as international travel by inspectors is not
required, nor is understanding local laws regarding data ownership,
privacy, and security necessary. The decreased visibility into data center
locations with cloud implementations is a concern to US agencies.
5 Assessment
and
Authorization
The cloud provider shall obtain certification that the service being
provided meets the requirements for the stated FISMA data
classification. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued the
FedRAMP Policy memo, establishing FedRAMP and its role in the
Assessment and Authorization (formerly known as the Certification and
Authorization) process for cloud systems. The FedRAMP Program
Management Office (PMO) issued a security control baseline at the
Low and Moderate impact levels and a Concept of Operations
(CONOPs). The FedRAMP A&A process is based on the NIST Risk
Management Framework and leverages the NIST SP 800-53 (Revision
3) security controls for information and information systems and
provides a methodology for assessing and authorizing cloud offerings to
Federal Cloud consumers, providing a cost-effective, risk-based
approach for assessing and authorizing cloud offerings to Federal cloud
consumers.
Table 4: Cross-Cutting Security System Requirements

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3.1.3.4 Cross-Cutting Interoperability System Requirements
Interoperability relates to communication and data transfer between different systems. System
requirements related to interoperability reflect the desire of federal agencies to automate processes
between systems to the greatest degree possible. Interoperability decreases the need for manual
intervention or providing the same information to multiple systems.
1 eDiscovery and
FOIA
eDiscovery interfaces shall be standard for both cloud and non-cloud
systems. eDiscovery requests do not differentiate between cloud-based and
traditional systems; both sources must be searched for responsive ESI. In
order to avoid multiple interfaces, depending on which application or
cloud service was obtained, standards are necessary to enable a single
interface. The capability of capturing this information is more complex in
cloud-based systems.
eDiscovery
Search
The ability to search various messaging, document repositories, and
application databases for eDiscovery and FOIA purposes must be
provided, including the search of metadata. The ability to search all
sources needs to be independent of whether the solution being searched is
in the cloud or directly managed. Due to the multi-tenant nature of cloud
services, this capability is currently immature.
2 Integrated
Mobile Device
Support
The cloud provider shall provide support for heterogeneous clients,
including mobile devices, thin and zero clients, Web clients, and thick
clients. The option to allow the use of the different devices shall be
configurable through a standard policy management interface. A single
interface used to configure all devices eliminates the need to swap between
programs when configuring different devices.
3 Email
Integration in
Cloud Services
The cloud provider shall provide a means of integrating application email
capabilities with the email systems of the cloud consumer. There should be
no need to separately define users within the cloud application; the
appropriate information should be received through the bulk provisioning
interface. Ensuring that email is appropriately configured and relayed
provides the cloud consumer with the traceability required for complying
with eDiscovery laws and regulations.

34
4 Help Desk and
Trouble
Ticketing
Management
The cloud provider shall provide a means of integrating application email
capabilities with the email systems of the cloud consumer. There should be
no need to separately define users within the cloud application; the
appropriate information should be received through the bulk provisioning
interface. Ensuring that email is appropriately configured and relayed
provides the cloud consumer with the traceability required for complying
with eDiscovery laws and regulations.
Interface for
Opening and
Routing Trouble
Tickets
The cloud provider shall provide a standard interface for opening trouble
tickets, enabling cloud consumers to open trouble tickets using automated
tools or to route trouble tickets from any general ticketing solutions that
the cloud consumer may be using. Complexity is decreased for a cloud
consumer using multiple cloud services if there is a single point for the
creation, update, and monitoring of trouble tickets.
Interface for
Notification of
Ticket Updates
and Status
Changes
The cloud provider shall provide a standard interface for receiving updates
on tickets that are not closed so that automated tools or general ticketing
solutions could be updated. Cloud consumers that have automated
reporting of problems and outages through their ticketing systems need to
integrate cloud provider ticketing with their systems.
Ticket Interface
to Email
The cloud provider shall allow the cloud consumer to update trouble
tickets using email for those individuals without access to a primary
interface. Agencies that provide the ability to email problem reports that
automatically open tickets have been identified.
Interface for
Event
Management
System Opening
and Update of
Tickets
The cloud provider shall notify the cloud consumer's event management
system when appropriate through a standard interface, updating status as
appropriate. Monitoring of all system event information through a single
interface is necessary for a unified view of important events throughout all
applications that are used by the cloud consumer. Moving a particular
system to the cloud does not remove the responsibility of the cloud
consumer to monitor and understand events in their systems.

35
5 Collaboration
Standards
Standard document formats are needed for portability and interoperability.
Metadata such as privileges, creation and modification dates, etc., are
needed to ensure that privileges, traceability, and information needed to
meet eDiscovery requirements are retained. Many agencies have
documents that are stored in old or obsolete formats. The ability to convert
these documents to more recent formats while retaining all metadata is
critical to allow these documents to be ported to the cloud.
Document
Migration Path
The cloud provider shall provide the ability to bulk convert files, including
metadata, from old or obsolete formats to current formats. When
implementing a collaboration solution in the cloud, agencies must be able
to migrate from old or obsolete file formats to current file formats.
Metadata need to be retained for eDiscovery and security purposes. The
use of cloud services for office productivity solutions increases the
frequency and complexity of changing providers.
External
Collaboration
The cloud provider shall provide a means for cloud subscriber users to not
only collaborate internally, but also to collaborate with external partners.
The sharing of documents in a secure and compliant way with external
organizations is frequently cited as a requirement for a collaboration
solution.
6 Billing and
Reporting
Interoperability
Billing and usage reporting should be standardized across systems to
enable cloud consumers to make meaningful comparisons of costs and
benefits across multiple cloud implementations.
7 VM
Management
Interoperability
Virtual machine management interoperability is required so that platforms
running in services provided by multiple cloud providers can be stopped,
started, terminated, and maintained using a single interface.
Table 5: Cross-Cutting Interoperability System Requirements

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3.1.3.5 Cross-Cutting Portability System Requirements
Portability system requirements identify needs for moving data between systems. Portability needs
arise when upgrading software or when migrating between two competing systems. Ending a
contract for a cloud service, whether by the cloud consumer or the cloud provider, results in
additional considerations, such as what must occur with data held by the cloud provider.
1 Email Data
Portability
Standards for moving email data must include metadata for purposes of
eDiscovery. Existing consensus-based standards for email, calendaring,
contacts, tasks, and notes should be fully supported to ensure portability
between different vendors. Retention of metadata when moving email
between different implementations or providers needs to be supported. As
not all standards for email are fully supported by all vendors, the
complexity of migrations is increased.
Data Export The cloud provider shall provide a method for exporting email, calendar
entries, tasks, notes, contacts, and saved instant messages to a standard
format, retaining initial and current metadata. Export to fully supported
standard formats simplifies migrations and enhances data portability.
Retention of initial and current metadata allows agencies to more easily
meet eDiscovery regulations.
Data Import The cloud provider shall provide a method for importing email, calendar
entries, tasks, notes, contacts, and saved instant messages from a standard
format, retaining initial and current metadata. Support for standard formats
increases the portability of standard email capabilities across vendors.
Retaining metadata during the import process enables compliance with
federal eDiscovery requirements.

37
2 Data Deletion Ensuring that data are completely deleted decreases the likelihood of
security breaches in the future, and ensures that federal agencies are
meeting security and privacy statutes. Traditionally, the owner of the data
is responsible for the hardware on which data were stored and backups
made, and ensured that data were destroyed prior to disposal of hardware.
In the cloud, the cloud consumer must rely on the cloud provider to ensure
deletion of data from all appropriate components (such as hard disks and
tapes).
Deletion of
Business Data
At the termination of a contract, the cloud provider must return all
business data to the cloud consumer, and ensure that the data are
irrevocably deleted from all of their systems. Ensuring deletion of all data
at the termination of a contract ensures that the cloud provider does not
have any future obligation to the cloud consumer. The cloud consumer
does not need to worry about potential security or privacy breaches at their
former cloud provider.
Deletion of
Logs, Usage
Data, and Audit
Data
At the termination of a contract, the cloud provider must delete all usage
data from all services that could be traced back to an agency or user. This
information could provide useful information to third parties about usage
patterns and implementation that the cloud consumer may not want
released. In a traditional implementation, the agency was able to directly
control data and its use; in a cloud implementation, the accountability
remains but the direct control is lost.
Code Escrow In the event of a cloud provider exiting or de-supporting a cloud solution,
to support the ability to set up this solution to another cloud so that the
solution can be used or migrated in the future, the cloud provider shall put
a copy of all of the source code required to re-create the system in escrow.
Federal cloud consumers must meet statutory data retention requirements.
Additionally, it is incumbent upon federal cloud consumers to ensure
continuity of operations. The ability to rapidly re-create the environment if
a cloud provider is no longer able to provide access to an appropriate
environment and version of the system is needed.

38
3 Portability for
eDiscovery and
FOIA Purposes
Federal agencies must meet various statutes regarding eDiscovery and
FOIA that are in place today. In order to meet eDiscovery obligations,
metadata need to be retained even as the underlying ESI are migrated from
one vendor to another. It is easier to retain metadata in a traditional
environment as more operations retain the information than when
switching cloud vendors.
Portability of
Responsive
Electronically
Stored
Information
For ESI deemed responsive to be portable, it is necessary to ensure that
information regarding implemented litigation holds and whether a specific
record was deemed responsive to one or more searches is retained. The
ESI themselves must be exportable in formats defined in discovery or
FOIA case law. The cloud environment differs in that retention of historic
information is likely to require migration.
Portability of
Metadata
Required for
eDiscovery and
FOIA
The migration of ESI shall retain metadata as per consensus-based
standards. Standards ensure that discovery tools provide agencies with the
ability to extract metadata from ESI in a manner consistent with
eDiscovery and FOIA requirements across applications or systems. The
need to rely on cloud providers having appropriate metadata necessitates
the use of standards.
Export of
Electronically
Stored
Information for
eDiscovery and
FOIA
The cloud provider shall provide the ability for eDiscovery tools to
produce ESI deemed to be responsive in standard formats, such as native,
tiff, jpg, and pdf. The format in which responsive ESI is provided to
requesting parties is determined through negotiation. Supporting multiple
formats for export of ESI is necessary to produce what is expected to the
requesting parties.

39
4 Portability of
Virtual
Desktops
The ability to move virtual desktops between vendors and cloud providers
must be provided. Virtual desktops are not currently portable between
vendors. Once a cloud consumer makes a decision to virtualize the desktop
environment, the virtualization stack is very difficult to migrate to a
different implementation.
Moving Virtual
Desktops
Between
Vendors
The cloud provider shall implement a standard format for virtual desktops.
A standard format based on consensus-based standards allows virtual
desktops to be moved seamlessly from one implementation to another.
Migration of
Virtual
Desktops
The cloud provider shall use standard interfaces that assign, start, and stop
virtual desktops. Migration of a virtual desktop should not require
additional configuration on the part of the cloud consumer’s administrators
to allow the user of the desktop to use the desktop in the new environment.
Agencies have thousands of users, and configuration changes would make
migrations very difficult and time-consuming.
Accessibility of
Virtual
Desktops from
Heterogeneous
Devices
The cloud provider shall make virtual desktops accessible via any device,
including mobile devices, pads, thin and zero clients, and standard fat
clients. Enabling access of virtual desktops from any device would
significantly increase the mobility of the cloud consumer’s workforce.
Cloud consumers use virtual desktops not only for increased control over
the desktop, but also to provide their users with the increased accessibility
through mobile computing.
Virtualization of
Legacy
Software
The cloud provider shall provide a means for virtualizing legacy software
packages. Legacy software is a significant problem for many cloud
consumers. In many agencies, there may be a lot of legacy applications
used by only a few people each that, if virtualized, would allow better
support and monitoring. Virtualizing these legacy applications removes the
dependency on aging hardware platforms and enables organizations to
continue to offer the utility of this software on modernized computing
infrastructure.
5 Portability of
Virtual
Machines
Static virtual machine portability is required so that the maintained
platform images can be freely migrated between cloud implementations
without the need for parallel development or maintenance.
Table 6: Cross-Cutting Portability Requirements

40
3.1.3.6 Mapping System Requirements to Mission Requirements
The table below shows the system requirements and which mission requirements provided the
genesis for each. The same system requirement could arise from one or more mission requirements.
Mission Requirements
eDiscovery
FOIA
Email
Workforce
Mobility
Collaboration
Common
Geospatial
Platform
SecurityData
Collection
Telework
Compliance
Monitoring
andTicketing
Security
Requirements
Identity Management X X X X X X X X
Security Audit
Information
X
Encryption X X X X X X X
Physical Security X
Assessment and
Authorization
X X X X X X
InteroperabilityRequirements
eDiscovery and FOIA X X
Integrated Mobile
Device Support
X
Email Integration in
Cloud Services
X X
Help Desk and Trouble
Ticketing Management
X
Collaboration Standards X
Billing and Reporting
Interoperability
X
VM Management
Interoperability
X
PortabilityRequirements
Email Data Portability X X X
Data Deletion X
Portability for
eDiscovery and FOIA
Purposes
X X X
Portability of Virtual
Desktops
X X
Portability of Virtual
Machines
X
Table 7: Mapping System Requirements to Mission Requirements

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3.2 SAJACC Use Cases and Technical Requirement
The Standards Acceleration to Jumpstart Adoption of Cloud Computing (SAJACC) project focuses
on cloud consumers’ technical requirements to generate concrete data about how different kinds of
cloud system interfaces can support portability, interoperability, and security. By showing worked
examples, the SAJACC project seeks to facilitate SDOs in their efforts to develop high-quality
standards that address these important needs.
Since its inception in May 2010, SAJACC has
evolved to be an operational process and portal
which includes iteratively:
• developing a set of cloud system use cases that
express selected portability, interoperability,
and security concerns that cloud users may
have;
• selecting a small set of existing cloud system
interfaces that can be used for testing
purposes;
• developing a test driver, for each use case and
selected system interface, that represents (to
the extent possible) the operation of the use
case on the selected system interface;
• running the test drivers and documenting the
extent each test driver can run on each selected
system interface; and documenting any
portability, interoperability, or security
implications of the test run; and
• publishing all use cases, test codes, and test
results on the openly accessible NIST Cloud
Computing Collaboration Portal, for use by
SDOs and other interested parties.
The set of technical use cases developed by the
SAJACC project describes how groups of users
and their resources may interact with one or more
cloud computing systems to achieve specific goals. Each of the goals expressed in the use cases are
usually a small atomic unit of work. This use case methodology has been widely used in software
and system engineering as a tool to express technical requirements. It describes actors (who are
involved) and goals (what to achieve), success scenarios (how to achieve the goals), failure
conditions, and failure handling.
The process of documenting cloud computing technical requirements using SAJACC use cases is
on-going; however, the first set of published SAJACC use cases includes three categories:
management, interoperability, and security, as shown in Table 8 below.
Highlights: SAJACC refers to a tactical
project, process, and portal.
The SAJACC project develops technical
requirements, and identifies and defines and
supports a process and portal that can be
used to test system interfaces that meet or
partially meet these requirements.
The results of the tests are analyzed to
capture portability, interoperability, or
security implications.
This section presents rationale and support
for NIST USG Cloud Computing
Technology Roadmap Volume I, High-
Priority Requirements:
 “International voluntary consensus-
based interoperability, portability, and
security standards” - Requirement 1,
and
Requirements” - Requirement 2.

42
Management Interoperability Security
 Open An Account
 Close An Account
 Terminate An Account
 Copy Data Objects Into a
Cloud
 Copy Data Objects Out of a
Cloud
 Erase Data Objects In a
Cloud
 Allocate VM Instance
 Manage Virtual Machine
Instance State
 Query Cloud-Provider
Capabilities and Capacities
 Copy Data Objects between
Cloud-Providers
 Dynamic Operation
Dispatch to IaaS Clouds
 Cloud Burst From Data
Center to Cloud
 Migrate a Queuing-Based
Application
 Migrate (fully-stopped)
VMs from one cloud-
provider to another
 User Account Provisioning
 User Authentication in the
Cloud
 Data Access Authorization
Policy Management in the
Cloud
 User Credential
Synchronization Between
Enterprises and the Cloud
 eDiscovery
 Security Monitoring
 Sharing of Access to Data in a
Cloud
Table 8: SAJACC Use Cases
Through an open process, the SAJACC project has also collected and generated a catalog of system
interfaces that can be used to address the technical requirement expressed in these use cases.
Furthermore, the SAJACC project has developed a generic testing framework and implemented test
drivers for an initial set of use cases using identified known system interfaces. This testing
mechanism has demonstrated how cloud consumers’ technical requirements can now be
implemented using existing public interfaces and also helped to surface issues and gaps in known
system interfaces. The set of use cases, test drivers, and testing results will provide concrete data to
SDOs in developing high-quality standards in addressing portability, interoperability, and security
concerns expressed by the consumers. The SAJACC project will continue the efforts to maintain
and develop technical use cases to update existing use cases with community input and address
future looking technical requirements. The project furthermore will develop demonstrable test
drivers to show how existing system interfaces can be used to implement these requirements and
what issues and gaps exist to feed into SDOs ongoing standardization efforts.

43
4 Cloud Computing Standards and Gap Analysis
Cloud Computing owes its existence to a sizable collection of standards that have been developed to
facilitate communication, data exchange, and security. As Cloud Computing gains momentum,
many other standards are emerging to focus on technologies that support cloud computing, such as
virtualization. SDOs and others are developing cloud computing conceptual models, standards
roadmaps, use cases, etc. The NIST Cloud Computing Standards Roadmap Working Group is
leveraging this existing, publicly available work,
plus the work of the other NIST working groups,
to identify standards, standards gaps, and
standardization priorities.
As identified in Volume I of the Technology
Roadmap, standards will play an important role in
cloud computing, particularly in interoperability,
portability and security. The analysis of cloud
computing standards, and resulting gaps, is closely
correlated to the entire cloud strategy:
• The standards, as listed in Section 4.1, are
aligned to and categorized by the NIST conceptual
model and reference architecture as referenced in
Section 2;
• The use cases in Section 3 and the revealed
USG cloud computing requirements provided
references in prioritization on the standards gaps
are listed in Section 4.2.
• Recommendations for accelerating the
development and use of cloud computing
standards, presented in Section 4.3, are in
accordance with the Priority Action Plans
presented in Volume I of the Technology
Roadmap.
Highlights:
To support US government requirements
for accessibility, interoperability,
performance, portability, and security in
cloud computing, the NIST public Cloud
Computing Standards Roadmap Working
Group has surveyed the existing standards
landscape for accessibility, performance,
security, portability, and interoperability
standards/models /studies/use cases, etc.,
relevant to cloud computing.
An inventory of Cloud Computing
Relevant Standards has been compiled, and
only three emerging cloud standards have
been identified to date.
The findings confirm the need for these:
USG Cloud Computing Technology
Roadmap Volume I high-priority
requirements:
 “International Voluntary Consensus
based Interoperability, Portability &
Security Standards” –
Requirement 1, and
 “Solutions for high priority security
requirements” – Requirement 2.
See NIST Special Publication 500-291
Version 2, NIST Cloud Computing Standards
Roadmap

44
4.1 Cloud Computing Standards
Standards are already available in support of many of the functions and requirements for cloud
computing accessibility, performance, portability, interoperability, and security. While many of
these standards were developed for pre-cloud computing technologies, such as those designed for
Web services and the Internet, they can also support the functions and requirements of cloud
computing. Other standards are now being developed in specific support of cloud computing
functions and requirements, such as virtualization.
To assess the state of standardization in support of cloud computing, the NIST Cloud Computing
Standards Roadmap Working Group has compiled an Inventory of Standards Relevant to Cloud
Computing (URL: http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-cloud-computing/bin/view/CloudComputing/StandardsInventory).
Using the taxonomy developed by the NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture and
Taxonomy Working Group, cloud computing relevant standards have been mapped to the
requirements of portability, interoperability, and security. The NIST Cloud Computing Standards
Roadmap, First Edition, NIST SP 500-291, includes a mapping of cloud computing standards.
4.2 Cloud Computing Standards Gaps and USG Priorities
There are emerging challenges in some areas of cloud computing that have been addressed by
technology vendors and service providers’ unique innovations. New service model interactions and
the distributed nature in resource control and ownership in cloud computing have resulted in new
standards gaps. Additionally, standardization gaps from some pre-cloud computing era gaps are
being brought to the forefront by cloud computing. Areas of standardization gaps are identified
from examining cloud computing standards.
As described in the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy, cloud computing business use cases have
various priorities. The requirements expressed in these high-priority target business use cases can be
used to prioritize the standardization gaps. For example, various USG groups have identified data
center consolidation using virtualization technologies as one of the primary goals in the next few
years. Migrating collaboration applications, including email messaging (email, contact and
calendars) and online office productivity applications to the cloud is also an early target of
government cloud operation.
Table 9 summarizes the areas of standardization gaps and standardization priorities based on USG
cloud computing adoption requirements. The NIST cloud computing reference architecture is used
as the framework of reference to identify these gaps in need of standardization, and then a broad set
of USG business use cases are used to identify the priorities of standardization that will maximize
the benefits and meet the more urgent needs of government consumers.

45
Area of Standardization Gaps High Priorities for Standardization Based
On USG Requirements
SaaS Functional Interfaces (Section 9.1.1 of SP
500-291 V2), e.g.,
- Data format and interface standards for
email and office productivity
- Metadata format and interface
standards for e-discovery
High standardization priorities on:
- SaaS application specific data and
metadata format standards to support
interoperability and portability
requirement when migrating high-
value, low-risk applications to SaaS
(Section 9.2.3 of SP 500-291 V2).
SaaS Self-Service Management Interfaces
(Section 9.1.2 of SP 500-291 V2), e.g.,
- Interface standards related to user
account and credential management
Not a high standardization priority at this
time
PaaS Functional Interfaces (Section 9.1.3 of SP
500-291 V2), e.g.,
- Standards of data format to support
database serialization and de-
serialization
time
Business Support, Provisioning and
Configuration (Section 9.1.4 of SP 500-291
V2), e.g.,
- Standards for describing cloud service-
level agreement and quality of services
- Standards for describing and
discovering cloud service resources
- Standards for metering and billing of
service consumptions and usage
- Resource description and discovery
standards to support data center
consolidation using private and
community IaaS cloud systems
(Section 9.2.4 of SP 500-291 V2)

46
Area of Standardization Gaps High Priorities for Standardization Based
On USG Requirements
Security (Section 9.1.5 of SP 500-291 V2),
e.g.,
- Standards for identity provisioning and
management across different network
and administration domains
- Standards for secure and efficient
replication of identity and access policy
information across systems
- Single Sign-On interface and protocol
standards that support strong
authentication
- Standards in policies, processes, and
technical controls in supporting the
security auditing, regulation, and law
compliance needs
- Security auditing and compliance
standards to support secure
deployment, assess, and accreditation
process for cloud-specific
deployment (Section 9.2.1 of SP 500-
291 V2)
- Identity and access management
standards to support secure
integration of cloud systems into
existing enterprise security
infrastructure (Section 9.2.2 of SP
500-291 V2)
Accessibility (Section 9.1.6 of SP 500-291
V2), e.g.
- Standardized “framework” for exchanging
an individual’s accessibility requirements
time
Table 9: Area of Standardization Gaps and Standardization Priorities
4.3 Accelerating the Development the Use of Cloud Computing Standards
Existing and new standards need to be applied or developed in support of agency's requirements,
such as for interoperability, portability, security, performance, and accessibility, for cloud
computing services. There is already a fast-changing landscape of cloud computing relevant
standardization under way in a number of SDOs. While there are only a few approved cloud
computing specific standards at present, federal agencies are encouraged to participate in specific
cloud computing standards development projects that support their service priorities. Specific
recommendations for government agencies are:
Recommendation 1 – Contribute Agency Requirements
Agencies should coordinate and contribute clear and comprehensive user requirements for cloud
computing standards projects.

47
Recommendation 2 – Participate in Standards Development
Agencies should actively participate and coordinate in cloud computing standards development
projects that are of high priority to their agency missions. The January 17, 2012, White House
Memorandum, M-12-08, lists five fundamental strategic objectives for federal government agencies
whenever engaging in standards development:
• Produce timely, effective standards and efficient conformity assessment schemes that are
essential to addressing an identified need;
• Achieve cost-efficient, timely, and effective solutions to legitimate regulatory, procurement, and
policy objectives;
• Promote standards and standardization systems that promote and sustain innovation and foster
competition;
• Enhance U.S. growth and competitiveness and ensure non-discrimination, consistent with
international obligations; and
• Facilitate international trade and avoid the creation of unnecessary obstacles to trade.
Recommendation 3 – Encourage Testing to Accelerate Technically Sound Standards-Based
Deployments
Agencies should support the concurrent development of conformity and interoperability assessment
schemes to accelerate the development and use of technically sound cloud computing standards and
standards-based products, processes, and services. Agencies should also include consideration of
conformity assessment approaches currently in place that take account of elements from
international systems, to minimize duplicative testing and encourage private sector support.
Recommendation 4 – Specify Cloud Computing Standards
Agencies should specify cloud computing standards in their procurements and grant guidance when
multiple vendors offer standards-based implementations and there is evidence of successful
interoperability testing.
Recommendation 5 – USG-Wide Use of Cloud Computing Standards
To support USG requirements for accessibility, interoperability, performance, portability, and
security in cloud computing, the Federal Cloud Computing Standards and Technology Working
Group, in coordination with the Federal CIO Council Cloud Computing Executive Steering
Committee (CCESC) and the Cloud First Task Force, should recommend specific cloud computing
standards and best practices for USG-wide use.

48
5 High-Priority Security Requirements
Industry surveys and polls consistently show that
security, privacy, and compliance are among the
greatest concerns of organizations considering
adopting cloud solutions. For USG agencies, such
concerns are often heightened due to the
sensitivity of information being handled and the
gravity of the consequences of failing to protect
such information. Indeed, cloud computing
characteristics do bring unique security
challenges such as:
• Broad network access, a prerequisite for
moving IT assets into the cloud, has the
potential to introduce new cyber threats;
• The (perceived) lack of visibility and
control over the IT assets often runs
counter to the existing security policies and
practices that assume complete
organizational ownership and physical
security boundaries;
• Multi-tenancy is prevalent in real-world
cloud solutions and a source of concern
related to segmentation, isolation, and
incident response.
Such challenges, however, are not
insurmountable. The key to secure cloud
computing lies in understanding the security
requirements in the particular cloud architectural
contexts and mapping them to proper security
controls and practices in technical, operational,
and management dimensions. In addition, cloud
computing may introduce new security
architectures and solutions, resulting in services
that are more robust and resilient. For example:
• Well-defined resource abstraction layers
(infrastructure, platform, and software apps)
bring more architectural flexibility, allowing
for application of more effective security
countermeasures at each layer, resulting in
better “defense in depth” compared with
traditional, rigid security controls relying on
physical attributes (such as specific devices,
Highlights: Federal managers are sensitive
to challenging security requirements that
may become obstacles to the adoption of
cloud computing, and the need to
understand and consider possible
mitigations.
The Security Requirements list reported in
this section was produced by the NIST-led
public Cloud Computing Security Working
Group, and reviewed with the Federal
Cloud Computing Standards and
Technology Working Group, and other
interagency stakeholders.
This section presents rationale that supports
the NIST USG Cloud Computing
Technology Roadmap Volume I high-
priority requirements:
Requirements” - Requirement 2;
 “Technical specifications to enable
development of consistent, high-quality
SLAs” - Requirement 3;
 “Updated Organization Policy that
reflects the Cloud Computing Business
and Technology model”- Requirement 6;
 “Defined unique government regulatory
requirements, technology gaps, and
solutions”- Requirement 7;
 “Defined and implemented reliability
design goals” – Requirement 9; and
 “Defined and implemented cloud service
metrics” – Requirement 10.
See also NIST Special Publication 800-144:
Guidelines on Security and Privacy in
Public Cloud Computing, and NIST Special
Publication 800-146: Cloud Computing
Synopsis and Recommendations.

49
MAC addresses, etc.).
• A cloud provider may achieve better “economies of scale” in applying security improvements
to many consumers. For example, a new control designed to remedy one consumer’s
vulnerability may be more quickly applied for all consumers.
5.1 Understanding Security in the Cloud Context
Though constantly facing new threats and incorporating new technological advances, network and
information security is generally a well-understood and well-researched domain with a rich body of
knowledge both in theory and in practice. Cloud-based services can leverage existing analyses of
security architectures to address security requirements such as authentication, authorization,
availability, confidentiality, identity management, integrity, audit, continuous monitoring, incident
response, and security policy management.
However, while these security requirements are not new, they need to be analyzed using cloud-
specific perspectives and characteristics. One approach is to leverage the Cloud Computing
Reference Architecture to better understand how and why security needs to be looked at differently
in the cloud, using the cloud model definition and perspectives.
5.1.1 Cloud Service Model Perspectives
The three service models identified by the NIST cloud computing definition, i.e., SaaS, PaaS, and
IaaS, present consumers with different types of service management operations and expose different
entry points into cloud systems, which in turn also create different attack surfaces for adversaries.
Hence, it is important to consider the impact of cloud service models and their different issues in
security design and implementation. For example, SaaS provides users with accessibility of cloud
offerings using a network connection, normally over the Internet and through a Web browser. There
has been an emphasis on Web browser security in SaaS cloud system security considerations. Cloud
consumers of IaaS are provided with virtual machines (VMs) that are executed on hypervisors on
the hosts; therefore, hypervisor security for achieving VM isolation has been studied extensively for
IaaS cloud providers that use virtualization technologies.
5.1.2 Implications of Cloud Deployment Models
One way to look at the security implications from the deployment model perspective is the differing
level of exclusivity of tenants in a deployment model. A private cloud is dedicated to one consumer
organization, whereas a public cloud could have unpredictable tenants coexisting with each other;
therefore, workload isolation is less of a security concern in a private cloud than in a public cloud.
Another way to analyze the security impact of cloud deployment models is to use the concept of
access boundaries. For example, an on-site private cloud may or may not need additional boundary
controllers at the cloud boundary when the private cloud is hosted on-site within the cloud
consumer organization’s network boundary, whereas an out-sourced private cloud tends to require
the establishment of such perimeter protection at the boundary of the cloud.
5.1.3 Shared Security Responsibility
The cloud provider and the cloud consumer have differing degrees of control over the computing
resources in a cloud system. Compared to traditional IT systems, where one organization has

50
control over the whole stack of computing resources and the entire life cycle of the systems, cloud
providers and cloud consumers collaboratively design, build, deploy, and operate cloud-based
systems. The split of control means both parties now share the responsibilities in providing adequate
protections to the cloud-based systems. Security is a shared responsibility. Security controls, i.e.,
measures used to provide protections, need to be analyzed to determine which party is in a better
position to implement these controls. This analysis needs to include considerations from a service
model perspective, where different service models imply different degrees of control between cloud
providers and cloud consumers. For example, account management controls for initial system
privileged users in IaaS scenarios are typically performed by the IaaS Provider whereas application
user account management for the application deployed in an IaaS environment is typically not the
provider’s responsibility.
5.1.4 Developing Security Architecture for Cloud Systems
As shown in previous sections, many other factors will affect the security in the cloud. The NIST
Cloud Computing Security Working Group will continue to work on guidelines to support a
framework for developing cloud security architecture for cloud systems.
5.2 Challenging Security Requirements and Risk Mitigations
Given the landscape of rapidly changing cloud industry solutions and emerging cloud security
standards, it is premature to provide a definitive, overarching architecture framework, and
implementation guidance for cloud security. As part of the roadmap initiative, the NIST Cloud
Computing Security Working Group has taken the first step in identifying a list of likely security
impediments to cloud adoption, and the available strategies for mitigating the risks inherent to the
selected security requirements.
The NIST security requirements and risk mitigations list describes the security issues that the NIST
Cloud Computing Security Working Group has identified as challenging for the cloud computing
adopters, and provides, when available, strategies for mitigating their effects.
Figure 6: Challenging Security Requirements to Mitigation Mapping

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Figure 6: Challenging Security Requirements to Mitigation Mapping illustrates the approach. For
each identified requirement, there is a brief textual description of the nature of the challenge created
by the unsatisfied requirement and, when available, a set of mitigations that can address or facilitate
solutions for this challenge. Each mitigation may briefly describe a strategy for mitigating the
security requirement. It may point to other existing work where the security requirement is
addressed, or both.
This document, Volume 2 of the USG Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap, provides a high-
level summary of requirement challenges and mitigations. It is not intended to serve the purpose of
detailed security guidance. More detailed security guidance exists in the form of special
publications which are referenced in this document and the NIST Challenging Security
Requirements for USG Cloud Computing Adoption which is being developed in an open
collaborative process through the working group. The working document is available through the
working group Web site: http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-cloud-
computing/bin/view/CloudComputing/CloudSecurity.
The following list of security requirements and mitigations is grouped in two categories: Process-
Oriented Requirements and Focused Technical Requirements. The following two sections
summarize the contents of the requirements and mitigations.
5.3 Process-Oriented Requirements
The following requirements rely primarily upon human-centered processes, procedures, and
guidance for risk mitigation.
5.3.1 NIST SP 800-53 Security Controls for Cloud-Based Information Systems
Description: The requirement addresses the need for clarity in how NIST SP 800-53 security and
privacy controls can be applied in cloud-based information systems.
Importance: Federal system owners must ensure that systems processing federal data are assessed
and authorized to operate. Migration of systems or services to the cloud environment does not affect
the authorizing official’s responsibility and authority.
Mitigation: NIST Risk Management Framework
FISMA and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) policy require cloud service providers
handling federal information or operating information systems on behalf of the federal government
to meet the same security and privacy requirements as federal agencies. Security and privacy
requirements for cloud service providers including the security and privacy controls for information
systems processing, storing, or transmitting federal information are expressed in appropriate
contracts or other formal agreements using the Risk Management Framework and associated NIST
security standards and guidelines. Organizations can require cloud service providers to implement
all steps in the Risk Management Framework described in NIST SP 800-37 with the exception of
the security authorization (to operate) step, which remains an inherent federal responsibility that is
directly linked to the management of risk related to the use of all IT services, including cloud
services.

52
Organizations determine the security category of the information that will be processed, stored, or
transmitted within the cloud-based information system in accordance with FIPS Publication 199.
This security categorization drives the selection of appropriate security and privacy controls that
will be required to be implemented by cloud service providers. Since many security and privacy
controls have shared responsibility for implementation depending on the cloud service model
chosen (e.g., IaaS, PaaS, SaaS), organizations should provide in their contracts and Service-Level
Agreements with cloud service providers, the specific allocation of those responsibilities.
Organizations should also ensure that the assessment of required security and privacy controls is
carried out by qualified independent, third-party assessment organizations that are able to assert if
the cloud service providers deliver appropriate evidence of control effectiveness. This evidence is
used by organizations to make initial authorization decisions. Organizations should also develop a
continuous monitoring strategy and ensure that the strategy is implemented by the cloud service
provider including defining how the security and privacy controls will be monitored over time (e.g.,
frequency of monitoring activities, rigor and extent of monitoring activities, and the data feeds
provided to the organization from the cloud service provider). The continuous monitoring data feeds
will be used by the organization for ongoing authorization decisions as part of its enterprise-wide
risk management program.
The assurance or confidence that the risk from using cloud services is at an acceptable level
depends on the trust that the organization places in the external service provider. In some cases, the
level of trust is based on the amount of direct control the organization is able to exert on the cloud
service provider with regard to employment of security and privacy controls necessary for the
protection of federal information and the cloud service as well as the evidence brought forth as to
the effectiveness of those controls. The level of control is usually established by the terms and
conditions of the contract or Service-Level Agreement with the cloud service provider (e.g.,
negotiating a contract or agreement that specifies detailed security and privacy controls for the
provider).
The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) is being implemented by
the Federal CIO Council and GSA in order to reduce the compliance burden for agencies and
suppliers in terms of time and cost, while still satisfying the requirements described above. This
includes defining minimum security and privacy requirements for cloud-based information systems.
FedRAMP has identified as set of requirements that must be in place to satisfy security and privacy
controls from NIST SP 800-53 as defined for low- and moderate-impact information processed,
stored, and transmitted within cloud-based information systems delivering cloud services.
Continuous monitoring controls are also defined. A conformity assessment program will provide
opportunities to obtain independent, third-party assessment services to determine security and
privacy control effectiveness. FedRAMP also follows the NIST Risk Management Framework as
described in NIST SP 800-37.
References: NIST SP 800-53 (as amended), NIST SP 800-37 (as amended), FedRAMP URLs.
5.3.2 Cloud Audit Assurance and Log Sensitivity Management
Description: Mechanisms to gain assurance that:
• Important events are monitored;

53
• Sensitive/private audit logs are appropriately protected;
• Integrity of audit data used for initial or continuous auditing purposes, e.g., audit logs, data
collected by Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP), etc. is protected; and
• Audit data interchange incompatibility is addressed.
Technical Considerations: The cloud model introduces another actor, the Cloud Auditor, into an
organization’s computing model. This fact introduces important questions about monitoring and
auditing requirements:
• Who is doing any particular monitoring or auditing task?
• Who is informed of the results of a particular monitoring or auditing task, and when?
• What is an appropriate level of abstraction and summarization in the aforementioned results?
It is important to note the distinction between monitoring and reporting. This requirement addresses
the monitoring task and how the results from that activity such as raw log data or aggregated reports
are handled. Section 5.9 of this document discusses the reporting requirements and guidance aimed
at standardizing the reporting function. Monitoring a system for anomalies is in the purview of the
system operator. Monitoring will produce results that can be compiled in a report and delivered to
other stakeholders of the system.
Cloud providers may be required to store and/or forward log data to designated collection points or
aggregation storage media. Whichever option for the handling of system log data is chosen, in order
to assure the data is secure, steps must be taken to protect the data in transit and at rest. There is any
number of methods for deployment of encryption to protect the data while ensuring it can be
accessed when requested. Data may be forwarded to external entities for automated inspection. An
IPSec-like encryption method may provide the best performance but may not be suitable for highly
mobile data scenarios.
Practical Example: Operational requirements for the monitoring or auditing of cloud environments
can vary significantly depending on many factors. For example, a private cloud restricted to limited
physical locations may not be as inherently mobile as a public cloud where data may be relocated
more dynamically. In such a private cloud scenario, monitoring sensors could be deployed without
the concerns of iterative relocating or modifying of sensors. In a public cloud, multi-tenancy
concerns could emerge depending on the characteristics of the data monitored and/or captured. If
those data are moved dynamically, providers and subscribers may face challenges in ensuring that
subscribers are able to monitor and receive reports specific to their data.
In a public cloud scenario, the provider has operational control of the environment and may offer a
baseline of monitoring services. SLAs or contracts should be used to ensure that specific
requirements for monitoring and metrics are satisfied. In any SLA or contract with the cloud service
provider, the consumer should specify measurable monitoring and reporting standards. The contract
should specify the measures to be taken if any SLA requirements are not met. The requirement for a
periodic review of the SLAs and their parameters should be defined in the contract. Monitoring
tasks also do not absolve the consumer of responsibility to monitor and audit aspects of the
information system that the consumer operates or manage.

54
Importance: Cloud Auditing and continuous monitoring are requirements for all federal systems.
Solution Maturity: Immature. While effective monitoring solutions have been in use for some time,
the high mobility inherent to the cloud computing environment and multi-tenancy provide unique
challenges on how to monitor specific data.
Mitigation 1: Risk management framework
The NIST Risk Management Framework (RMF) (SP 800-37) provides guidance to federal system
owners to take a risk-based approach to securing systems. This approach is operationally focused
and is intended to facilitate the monitoring, documenting, and mitigation of threats on a regular if
not near real-time basis. Continuous monitoring is step 6 of SP 800-37's 6-step risk management
framework. While many vendors are seeking to offer automated vulnerability monitoring tools, it is
important to realize that there is more to an effective continuous monitoring program than
automated tools.
The FedRAMP program's Proposed Security Assessment and Authorization document
(https://info.apps.gov/sites/default/files/Proposed-Security-Assessment-and-Authorization-for-
Cloud-Computing.pdf) describes an effective continuous monitoring program as one that includes:
• Configuration management and control processes for information systems;
• Security impact analyses on proposed or actual changes to information systems and
environments of operation;
• Assessment of selected security controls (including system-specific, hybrid, and common
controls) based on the defined continuous monitoring strategy;
• Security status reporting to appropriate officials; and
• Active involvement by authorizing officials in the ongoing management of information system-
related security risks.
It is important to note that there is a distinction between the continuous monitoring controls
requirements identified in FedRAMP controls set, currently implemented mechanisms to perform
continuous monitory functions, and target or future continuous monitoring solutions and standards
which are being defined and developed. They are not one and the same, although the current
continuous monitoring mechanisms and future continuous monitoring solutions may be applied to
satisfy the FedRAMP controls requirements.
Sufficiency Comment: The RMF and 800-53 provide adequate guidance and controls related to the
securing of audit data.
Mitigation 2: Audit Data Interchange
The Cybersecurity Information Exchange Techniques (CYBEX) project was launched by the
International Telecommunication Union - Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T).
Cybex provides for the structured exchange at known assurance levels of information about the
measurable “security state" of systems and devices, about vulnerabilities, about incidents such as
cyber attacks, and about related knowledge "heuristics." The CYBEX initiative imports more than
20 “best of breed” standards for platforms developed over the past several years by government

55
agencies and industry to enhance cyber security and infrastructure protection. Pulling these
platforms together in a coherent way provides for:
• “Locking down” on-line systems to minimize vulnerabilities;
• Capturing incident information for subsequent analysis when harmful incidents occur; and
• Discovering and exchanging related information with some degree of assurance.
The CYBEX Model includes:
• Architecting cyber security information to support exchange;
• Identifying and discovering cyber security information and entities;
• Establishing trust and policy agreement between exchanging entities;
• Requesting and responding with cyber security; and
• Assuring the integrity of the cyber security information exchange.
Real-time Inter-network Defense (RID) [RFC6045, RFC6046] provides a proactive inter-network
communication method to facilitate sharing incident handling data while integrating existing
detection, tracing, source identification, and mitigation mechanisms for a complete incident
handling solution. Organizations have a need for RID and related standards in cloud computing to
communicate quickly and efficiently with their providers on incident information. The escalation
points from detection to investigation and mitigation may vary based on SLAs, but the transfer of
the information must be standardized (globally) to enable the use of various vendor platforms for
the secure and standardized exchange of incident information. The incident information may be
exchanged for the purpose of situational awareness or be for an investigation that is associated with
a request to mitigate or stop the incident. Incidents may also be benign and require quick reporting
and mitigation methods. Examples include configuration issues or availability issues caused by
operations problems. These incidents may also be communicated via the described protocols.
References:
• CSA Cloud Audit - http://cloudaudit.org/page5/page5.html
• CSA/ CSC - Cloud Trust Protocol -
http://assets1.csc.com/lef/downloads/Digital_Trust_in_the_Cloud.pdf
• The FedRAMP document: https://info.apps.gov/sites/default/files/Proposed-Security-
Assessment-and-Authorization-for-Cloud-Computing.pdf
• NIST 800-53 AU9 – Protection of audit Information
• PCI DSS 10.5.5 – File Integrity Monitoring
• ISO27001 10.10.3 – Protection of Log Information
• NIST SP 800-92 - Guide to Computer Security Log Management
• CSA CCM SA-14 – Audit Logging / Intrusion Detection

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• CYBEX Overview - http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-t/oth/0A/0D/T0A0D00001D0004PDFE.pdf
5.3.3 Cloud Certification and Accreditation
Description: How to certify and accredit cloud solutions with confidence.
Importance: USG departments and agencies, to effectively manage information security risks
inherent in all modern computing technologies, must have a high degree of trust and confidence in
the entities providing new and innovative technologies, including cloud technologies and services.
Mitigation: FedRAMP was initiated to provide a cost-effective, risk-based approach for the
assessment and authorization of federal cloud services. Establishing clear and concise expectations
for security and privacy based on current threats, taking advantage of innovative, open, and state-of-
the-practice solutions for the protection of federal information in cloud-based information systems,
and ensuring a high degree of transparency in security and privacy solutions, will promote a climate
of trust between consumers and providers of cloud services.
References:
• http://www.fedramp.gov
5.3.4 Needed Electronic Discovery Guidelines
Description: Mechanism to provide access to data in response to lawful authority while protecting
consumer privacy. Mechanism to ensure service providers are preserving electronic records with
sufficient evidential weight and chain of custody controls.
Importance: Meeting electronic discovery requests can pose a challenge when electronically stored
information (ESI) is in the cloud.
Mitigation 1: When procuring a cloud service, consumers must gain an understanding of how the
cloud provider processes electronic discovery and litigation holds. The consumer should acquire
knowledge of key issues – such as the length of time the provider takes to enforce a litigation hold
(i.e., prevent the modification and/or destruction of pertinent evidence) or respond to an electronic
discovery request and what steps are required to invoke these processes, types of logs and metadata
retained including life cycles of same, dependencies on other providers, evidentiary chain of
custody and storage, and additional processing fees that may be incurred. Having a subject-matter
expert discuss these processes with the cloud provider is preferable to a checklist, due to the
variances of cloud environments and the specialized knowledge requirements around electronic
discovery and preservation of evidence. Specific wording or clauses may need to be inserted into
the cloud contract to ensure that cloud providers share the burden for failure to properly secure and
maintain evidence once a hold or request has been properly initiated.
Mitigation 2: Consumers should undertake the effort to map significant business processes and ESI
created, processed, and/or stored as a result that would have a high likelihood of being the target of
an electronic discovery request. Where possible, the proactive collection, indexing, and storage of
ESI that has a reasonable expectancy of falling within the scope of future litigation or discovery
requests (such as email) may lessen the dependency on cloud providers – particularly if the ESI can
be stored on systems under the direct control of the consumer. A records retention policy defining

57
the forms of ESI routinely collected and archived, as well as ESI formats not retained, can assist in
refining the scope of this effort.
Mitigation 3: Providers should undertake the effort to understand the requirements for lawful
intercept, national security letters, subpoena, and e-discovery. Providers must make a timely
response and provide information for a specific tenant without collateral information from other
tenants. Providers must be able to locate and provide access to data or communication channels that
are specific to a single tenant.
References:
• Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (2010).
5.3.5 Needed Cloud Privacy Guidelines
Description: This requirement addresses the need to build predictability and confidence in the
degree to which cloud solutions provide privacy of data and Personally Identifiable Information
(PII) protection.
Importance: The Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C. § 552a As Amended
(http://www.justice.gov/opcl/privstat.htm) and The Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act of
1988 (http://www.irs.gov/irm/part11/irm_11-003-039.html) require the protection of personal information
held by agencies. Additionally, in the commercial arena, the FTC’s Fair Information Practices have
established a framework under which individuals can depend upon certain privacy-related rights
and expectations when engaging in business transactions with both online and brick-and-mortar
merchant entities. (http://www.ftc.gov/reports/privacy3/fairinfo.shtm) The OMB Memorandum M03-22
established the guidance for federal agencies to implement the E-Government Act of 2002. This
guidance provided for individual agencies to develop Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) to enable
them to understand the privacy implications of the data that they were managing within their
systems and to ensure that the proper controls were in place to protect the data according to
established law.
Mitigation 1: Ensure that Cloud Providers protect the personal information to the requisite levels of
protection a) that have been established for all of the federal agencies’ systems, and b) are finalized
to the degree necessary to define cloud-specific controls. Service-Level Agreements and other legal
instruments need to be established between the Cloud Consumer and the Cloud Provider, given that
the Cloud Consumer is still responsible for the protection of the data.
Mitigation 2: Establish and maintain the confidence of those individuals for and about whom
federal agencies manage personal data. Cloud Consumers (federal agencies) should, in the case of
cloud services as in the case of other computing models, consistently assess the scope of the
Personally Identifiable Information that they manage within services for which they are responsible.
This requires the application of PIA processes in order to determine the degree of risk associated
with the type of data that is being maintained. For instance, health information (under the Health
Insurance Portability Accountability Act and Health Information Technology for Economic and
Clinical Health [HITECH requirements]) needs to be assessed in the context of the public, hybrid
public/private, community and private cloud models at all service levels.

58
Mitigation 3: Ensure that cross-jurisdictional Privacy issues are addressed and incorporated in
agencies’ cloud deployments if the data that will be collected, managed, retained, or otherwise
processed falls under the scope of global Data Protection regulations.
References:
General Privacy Laws Governing Federal Agencies
• Privacy Act of 1974 http://www.justice.gov/opcl/privstat.htm
• E-Government Act of 2002 http://frWebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-
bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ347.107.pdf
• OMB Privacy Guidance and Policies
• Privacy Act Implementation, Guidelines and Responsibilities
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/omb/inforeg/implementation_guidelin
es.pdf
• OMB Circular No. A-130, Management of Federal Information Resources
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars_a130_a130trans4
• OMB Memorandum M-99-18, Privacy Policies on Federal Web Sites
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/memoranda_m99-18
• OMB Memorandum M-03-22, OMB Guidance for Implementing the Privacy Provisions of the
E-Government Act of 2002 http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/memoranda_m03-22
• OMB Memorandum M-06-15, Safeguarding Personally Identifiable Information
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/omb/memoranda/fy2006/m-06-15.pdf
• OMB Memorandum M-07-16, Safeguarding Against and Responding to the Breach of
Personally Identifiable Information
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/omb/memoranda/fy2007/m07-16.pdf
• OMB Memorandum M-10-22, Guidance for Online Use of Web Measurement and
Customization Technologies
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/memoranda_2010/m10-22.pdf
• OMB Memorandum M-10-23, Guidance for Agency Use of Third-Party Websites and
Applications http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/memoranda_2010/m10-
23.pdf
• Other OMB Guidelines Additional Guidance from OMB regarding Privacy Regulations
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg_infopoltech#prm
Department of Justice
• DOJ Privacy Act Regulations, “Protection of Privacy and Access to Individual Records Under
the Privacy Act of 1974,” 28 C.F.R. pt. 16 subpart D.
http://www.justice.gov/opcl/regulations.htm

59
• DOJ Privacy Act Regulations, “Exemption of Records Systems Under the Privacy Act,” 28
C.F.R. pt. 16 subpart E. http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_10/28cfr16_10.html
• Incident Response Procedures for Data Breaches Involving Personally Identifiable Information
http://www.justice.gov/opcl/breach-procedures.pdf
• DOJ Overview of Privacy Act http://www.justice.gov/opcl/1974privacyact-overview.htm
Department of Homeland Security
• http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/privacy/privacy_pia_guidance_may2007.pdf
U.S. Security and Exchange Commission
• http://www.sec.gov/about/privacy/piaguide.pdf
FDIC
• http://fcx.fdic.gov/about/privacy/assessments.html
Department of Education
• http://www2.ed.gov/notices/pia/index.html
Department of Defense
• http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/540016p.pdf
5.3.6 Clarity on Cloud Actors Security Roles and Responsibilities
Description: Mechanism to define who (among cloud actors such as consumer and provider) is
responsible for the implementation of required security controls. Intuitively, it seems that the actor
most able to observe and configure a specific portion of a cloud implementation would be the best
positioned to implement a relevant control.
Importance: The data owner (cloud consumer) is responsible for compliance with laws and
regulations including the proper security controls for their data, regardless of its location or the
involvement of other parties. The data owner’s ability to implement security controls is often
limited when consumer data is off-premise and under the control of a third party. Cloud
providers/brokers/carriers have increasing responsibilities for implementing and maintaining
security depending on the cloud deployment and service models.
Mitigation 1: Provider-consumer guidelines
Guidance that documents roles and responsibilities definitions for cloud provider and consumer
helps provide the required clarity. Such guidance can be used in specifying the responsibilities for
protection in contract terms between a system owner and a cloud provider.
Mitigation 2: Cloud type/service selection
In cases where a larger degree of direct control over security roles/responsibilities and the ability to
implement security controls is needed, cloud consumers may consider utilization of a service type
and/or a deployment type which will allow that requirement to be fulfilled.

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References:
• CSA Cloud Controls Matrix, which included controls from frameworks such as: ISO
27001/27002, ISACA COBIT, PCI, NIST 800-143, Jericho Forum and NERC CIP
• NIST Special Publication 800-146, Cloud Computing Synopsis and Recommendations
5.3.7 Trustworthiness of Cloud Operators
Description: This requirement addresses the need to ensure that individuals with physical and
logical access to subscriber data are properly vetted and screened periodically to ensure
trustworthiness.
Importance: For cloud service consumers, it is critical to be able to confirm the security practices of
their service providers’ operations. This is necessary to maintain and improve the security posture
of their data and operational services. Cloud consumers need to know and understand what cloud
providers are doing and if they are effectively performing those functions. In addition, cloud
consumers must be able to randomly and independently verify their cloud service providers’
practices.
Mitigation 1: Operator human resources practices
Through standardized, consistent SLAs of high quality and completeness, consumers can specify
requirements such as background screening requirements for operator staff, require regular training
to ensure that operator employees (including contractors and third-party users) understand
responsibilities related to specific consumer requirements, and apply best practices. It is also
reasonable for consumers and operators to define and confirm application of separation of duties
and processes to monitor unauthorized activities by malicious insiders.
Mitigation 2: Operator self-certification and third party verification
To gain consumers’ trust, cloud operators may pursue self-certification of compliance with legal
and regulatory requirements (consistent with SAS 70 or ISO 27002 compliant certification
systems). Third-party independent audit of operators’ information security management can be
applied to policies and specific management and technical controls.
Mitigation 3: Operator transparency
Consumers need to trust and verify that cloud operators offer the appropriate level of security and
governance for their data and applications. Operator transparency implies a commitment to
communicate security information (policies, practices and incident responses) to consumers and to
advise them as to risks and risk mitigations.
Mitigation 4: Improved knowledge base through reviews of services provided by government,
consumer, and industry groups
References:
• FedRAMP repository of authorized cloud providers (http://www.fedramp.gov).

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• Reviews and insights into the cloud hosting companies (http://www.cloud-hosting-
providers.com/).
• List of cloud servers (http://www.bestcloudserver.com/).
• List of cloud hosting providers (http://www.cloudhostingreviewer.com/).
5.3.8 Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
Description: In traditional IT operations, business continuity planning (more specifically,
contingency planning) is complex, and the effectiveness of its implementation is difficult to test and
verify. More often than not, when disasters occur, unexpected disruptions create confusion and
result in less efficient recovery practices. Cloud computing increases complexity to the IT
infrastructure and obfuscates responsibility between cloud provider and consumer. This elevates the
level of concern related to business continuity and disaster recovery in a new paradigm such as
cloud computing.
Importance: Identifying an effective Contingency and Disaster Recovery Plan is imperative to
securing information systems and is a required deliverable of the Risk Management Framework and
Certification and Accreditation Process.
Mitigation 1: Consistent policies and procedures, as in the case of all IT services. This includes
taking action to:
• Develop a contingency plan for a cloud-based application or system using guidelines in NIST
SP 800-34 Rev 1 and in Domain 9: Contingency Planning, Federal Cloud Security Guidelines
(if published);
• Determine ownership, data sensitivity, cloud service and deployment models, roles and
responsibilities;
• Specify Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO);
• Set recovery priorities and map resource requirements accordingly;
• Provide a road map of actions for activation, notification, recovery procedures, and
reconstitution;
• Enforce policies and procedures through SLAs;
• Incorporate the consumer contingency plan for individual application and/or system into the
cloud provider’s overall contingency plan;
• Establish management succession and escalation procedures between cloud provider and
consumer; and
• Reduce the complexity of the recovery effort.
Mitigation 2: Ensure that requirements traditionally met through the following clustering and
redundancy mechanisms are addressed:
• Shared storage clusters;

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• Hardware-level clustering;
• VM clusters; and
• Software clustering (application servers and database management systems).
Mitigation 3: Ensure requirements met traditionally through alternate sites and backup are
addressed. NIST SP 800-53 Rev3 recommends:
• Alternate storage and processing sites;
• Alternate telecommunication services;
• Information system backup;
• Provide cold, warm and hot backup sites (economies of scale);
• Outsource information system backup to a cloud backup service;
• Use multiple cloud providers; and
• Supplement cloud provider’s backup schemes with consumer’s non-cloud sites.
Mitigation 4: Ensure effective testing and exercises are conducted. This includes exercising the
contingency plan periodically to verify its effectiveness (including personnel training) and
confirming that it is updated to reflect changes in any of the dependent factors.
The service provider and consumer should plan to perform joint contingency plan testing and
exercises against high-level disruptions to discover deep-rooted risks.
The service provider and consumer should plan to perform joint testing in business and service
provider production-like environments to exercise contingency plans.
References:
• NIST SP 800-34 Rev 1: Contingency Planning Guide for Federal Information Systems
• NIST SP 800-53 Rev 3: Recommended Security Controls for Federal Information Systems and
Organizations
• NIST SP 800-144: DRAFT Guidelines on Security and Privacy in Public Cloud Computing
• Federal Cloud Security Guidelines (2011)
5.3.9 Technical Continuous Monitoring Capabilities
Description: The assessment is that there are insufficient technical continuous monitoring
capabilities to the extent necessary to support monitoring of cloud environments. This requirement
is especially challenging in the case of multi-data center clouds which use many different security
tools. The audit data from diverse security tools must be normalized and aggregated to provide
situational awareness to support low-level security operations. This data then needs to be further
aggregated to provide the perspective needed to support high-level operational mission assessments

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and management decisions. The data needs to reflect the security posture of the cloud as well as the
security posture of consumer’s mission supported by the cloud services.
Practical Example: Questions exist regarding how specific information can be obtained and
obsessed related to the security posture of an environment in which a subscribers’ data may reside.
Existing monitoring solutions were not designed for highly mobile environments or multi-tenant
environments with potentially largely disparate monitoring and reporting requirements.
Importance: Cloud providers must be able to gain situational awareness of their cloud environment
and to provide evidence to their consumers that the cloud infrastructure is secure. Also important is
the ability to provide consumer feedback on the security posture related to their use of cloud
services.
Solution Maturity: Much of the foundation for addressing this requirement exists in the subject area
of security automation standards. This is especially true for asset, configuration, and vulnerability
management. However, the higher-level model needed to provide situational awareness is still
immature.
Mitigation 1: The CAESARS Framework Extension effort (under development). This joint NIST,
NSA, and DHS effort is planned to provide a reference model for data normalization, aggregation,
and situational awareness. In the short term, the effort is focused on binding to the Security Content
Automation Protocol in order to provide continuous monitoring capabilities for asset, configuration,
and vulnerability management.
CyberScope is designed to be a secure Web-based application that collects automated and manual
data from federal agencies, used to assess and report the agencies’ IT security posture. CyberScope
receives live data feeds and that provided through data entry by agency staff. CyberScope is
designed as a central repository, accessible by agencies through a standard interface and format.
Through this interface, agencies provide data to the OMB, which then compiles and generates
reports to other agencies, as required by the FISMA. 3
The information that OMB requires to be reported through CyberScope is broader in scope than the
status of individual assets. The latter is the focus of the CAESARS reference architecture.
Nevertheless, the CAESARS reference architecture can directly support the achievement of some
continuous monitoring objectives by ensuring that the inventory, configuration, and vulnerabilities
of systems, services, hardware, and software are consistent, accurate, and complete. A fundamental
underpinning of both the CAESARS reference architecture and the CyberScope reporting objectives
is full situational awareness of all agency IT assets.4
Sufficiency Comment: When adopted and implemented, the CEASARS framework will allow
agencies to implement CM more rapidly by leveraging CM-compliant tools, eliminating the need
3
https://www.cippguide.org/2010/11/02/cyberscope/
4
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/fns-caesars.pdf

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for custom integration efforts. This is envisioned to more effectively support the Cloud Computing
paradigm.
References:
• CAESARS Framework Extension: A Continuous Monitoring Technical Reference Architecture,
Draft NIST IR 7756, http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/drafts/nistir-7756/Draft-nistir-
7756_feb2011.pdf
• NIST SP 800-137, Information Security Continuous Monitoring for Federal Information
Systems and Organizations
5.4 Focused Technical Requirements
This section describes potential security impediments and risk mitigations, where the focus is on
technical mechanisms rather than human processes.
5.4.1 Visibility for Consumers
Description: Mechanism to define how cloud subscribers (consumers) can observe their workloads
to become aware of their security, compliance, privacy, health, and general status. Mechanism to
determine how subscribers can instruct the cloud service providers regarding the information in
which they are interested.
Importance: Cloud subscribers are ultimately liable for security, compliance, and privacy.
Security/compliance/privacy regulations specify that that ultimate liability cannot be outsourced.
Providers do not currently attempt to accept full responsibility through their SLAs.
Providers may compensate for the subscription cost of an outage, but not the actual damage or loss
of business that results.
Mitigation 1: Agreement and cooperation between providers and consumers to implement
customized controls based on consumer-specific requirements and to provide transparency to their
implementation and use.
As pointed out in the FedRAMP’s Considerations for Federal Cloud Computing Audit and Risk
Assessment, SLAs should identify customer-specific requirements and clearly state who is
responsible for what monitoring and audit task (to prevent visibility gap between provider and
customer) and who is informed of the results. Additionally, standards and methods should be
specified for customers to instruct the cloud as to what to monitor and to be alerted about.
Mitigation 2: Effective Monitoring
Consumers can achieve greater visibility with an effective monitoring system that includes:
• Packet-based, strategically deployed among physical and virtual machines, real-time monitoring
and historical trending metrics;
• End-to-end monitoring and measurement handled by cloud applications and embedded into the
cloud architecture using cloud application programming interfaces (APIs);

65
• Centralized monitoring and analysis system of configuration files and log files, with automatic
alert capability; and
• SCAP-compliant monitoring tools. SCAP is an alert format standard mandated by the U.S.
Government and which can help providers push alerts to consumers in a standard format.
Mitigation 3: Audit
CloudAudit.org is a Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) standardization initiative to provide a common
interface and namespace (mostly through mapping) that allows providers to automate the Audit,
Assertion, Assessment, and Assurance (A6) of their cloud environments and allows customers to do
likewise via open, extensible, and secure APIs.
Mitigation 4: Unified monitoring and management tools
• Unified and centralized tools that monitor and manage both physical and virtual environments
and can be accessed by both administrators and customers (e.g., EMC Ionix and VMware
vCenter); and
• Tools that push monitoring to customers and allow customers to configure what is interesting to
them (e.g., Amazon CloudWatch).
References:
• Cloud Security Alliance, www.cloudaudit.org
• Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP), http://scap.nist.gov
• http://aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/
• http://symmetrix.com/products/detail/software/ionix-unified-infrastructure-manager.htm
• NIST SP 800-144, Guidelines on Security and Privacy in Public Cloud Computing
• NIST SP 800-146, Draft Cloud Computing Synopsis and Recommendations
• FedRAMP’s Considerations for Federal Cloud Computing Audit and Risk Assessment
5.4.2 Control for Consumers
Description: The assessment is that consumers have limited control over security policies enforced
by cloud providers on their behalf. There is little automation available to help consumers to
implement technical controls (policies) in their applications which are deployed in cloud models. A
mechanism is needed to allow cloud consumers to maintain effective control over their workload,
given that the protection mechanisms and the location of the workloads may not be known to them.
The requirement is a mechanism that allows consumers to communicate to the cloud provider
regarding the security policies that are to be enforced at various control layers such as data object,
VMs/Applications, virtual network, and geographic location.
Importance: Moving IT services to the cloud model necessitates some degree of ceding control over
how information is protected and where it resides. It is important to identify information assets and

66
control needs and to adopt cloud models accordingly. Consumers and providers need to be able to
define and enforce security policies at various control layers.
Mitigation 1: Selection and Use of Appropriate Cloud Models
Consumers are responsible for the selection and use of appropriate cloud models. Through the
selection process, consumers can ensure that they gain adequate visibility. When selecting the
appropriate cloud model, consumers should research and understand:
• Public, hybrid, community, and private cloud models with increasingly greater customer control
over tenants;
• SaaS, PaaS and IaaS service models with increasingly greater customer control over
infrastructure;
• Externally hosted and internally hosted models with increasingly greater customer control over
location; and
• External provider operated, outsourced, and internally operated with increasingly greater
customer control over personnel.
Mitigation 2: Control Data Objects
Access control over data objects is a widely used and mature function. Consumers need to verify
that providers protect data at rest, in transit, and when it is processed. Protection measures include:
• Establishing and maintaining data ownership;
• Using of authorization management standards/systems to specify and enforce access controls
based on the attributes of the user and the data object, and the context of the access request;
• Maintaining change history records; and
• Managing the data life cycle.
Mitigation 3: Control of VMs, Applications and Networks
Consumers can ascertain the correct implementation of the security controls better when they have
of control of the VMs and existing applications. This process ensures consumers can:
• Perform and verify that VM hardening is implemented based on federal and generally accepted
standards;
• Use automated tools to assess and report VM baseline security configurations and patch updates
(including dormant and rolled back);
• Sanitize and protect virtual machine images; and
• Secure APIs (based on externalized, unified and fine-grained authorization management, for
example) to allocate, start, stop and de-allocate VMs/applications.
• Apply similar protection mechanisms of physical network (for example, firewall, IDS and
antivirus) to intra-host virtual network (vSwitches/vLANs); and

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• Make traffic in virtual network visible to security and monitoring devices on physical network.
Mitigation 5: Control of Geographic Location
Federal cloud consumers may, through SLAs and contract requirements, restrict the geographic
location of data due to the potential variances in privacy and security regulations of some
jurisdictions. Such restrictions could impose additional burden on providers and potentially impact
cost and efficiency.
References:
• www.modeldrivensecurity.org
• www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=xacml
5.4.3 Data Security
Description: The loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability of consumer data results in a
variety of impacts. Cloud consumers need to understand the extent of the data protection that a
cloud offers (even if limited) in order to make rational risk-based decisions regarding cloud data
storage and processing services.
FIPS 199 provides a categorization scheme (low-impact, moderate-impact, high-impact) for data
and systems and describes the impacts in terms of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The
suitability of a cloud to store or process consumer data varies depending on the data security impact
level and on the extent that the cloud service provider can offer assurance that the data is protected.
The technical ability to protect data varies depending on how the data is accessed. A number of
access scenarios are possible, including:
• In transit to or from a provider: Data that a consumer wishes to upload into a cloud must be
protected in transit; similarly, data that a consumer wishes to download from a cloud must be
protected in transit;
• Passively stored with no shared access: Data should be accessed only by the originating
consumer and needs to be protected against access attempts by all other entities, while
preserving the availability for the originating consumer;
• Passive stored with selective shared access: Data should be accessed only by entities that have
been authorized by the originating consumer for specific access modes (e.g., read, write, delete)
and needs to be protected against access attempts by unauthorized entities or accesses in
unauthorized modes, while preserving availability for authorized consumers;
• Passively stored public access: Data should be accessible anonymously in some authorized
modes (e.g., read) but not accessed in other modes except by authorized consumers;
• Actively processed: Data is accessed by a computation running in a cloud (e.g., a VM, PaaS, or
SaaS application) but otherwise may not be shared or may be shared selectively;
• Account termination: Data should be maintained for a fixed period of time; and
• Deletion: There is authorized erasure of consumer data.

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Importance: High. If cloud services do not offer robust protection of consumer data, migration to
cloud computing will be limited to low-impact data and applications.
Mitigation 1: Consumers need to take steps to verify and cloud service providers need to implement
data management measures to ensure the integrity and availability of information which is in transit,
being processed, and in storage. Another consideration of cloud usage is data segregation and
isolation, to address the risk that data may be comingled between organizations. Data encryption
can be used to address the requirement of data confidentiality in various states. Data management
measures include:
Data at rest:
• Prevent data tampering, copying, alteration, and deletion;
• Applying hashes or certificates to ensure authenticity; and
• Implementing method(s) to support search and to update encryption algorithms.
Data processing:
• Define the requirements for treatment of information which is processed within the cloud; and
• Implement processes to prevent data leakage.
Data in transit:
• Deploy remote VPN connections instead of Public ISP access;
• Use a secure (encrypted) communication when accessed from a mobile wireless devices;
• Use of intranet, cross-agency or cross-department
• Protect data using encryption for confidentiality and hashing or signatures for integrity.5
Mitigation 2: Consumers need to take steps to verify and cloud service providers need to employ a
comprehensive Information Life Cycle Management Program to help assure the protection and
proper handling of data throughout the various phases of data management. Cloud providers are
responsible for managing some phases of the SDLC program but federal officials are ultimately
responsible for ensuring that mechanisms for enforcement and oversight are in place and adhered to.
The Cloud Security Alliance has developed a useful model of information life cycle management,
which defines the phases of Create, Store, Use, Share, Archive, and Destroy6
, as shown in Figure 7.
The security requirements in this life cycle are defined based on the types of data.
5 Guidelines for Secure Use of Cloud Computing by Federal Departments and Agencies
6
http://www.cloudsecurityalliance.org/csaguide.pdf

69
Figure 7: Information Life Cycle Management Phases
This simple model of Create, Store, Use, Share, Archive, and Destroy can use adapted security
controls from NIST SP 800-64 and NIST SP 800-53Rev3. This is one example of a private sector
model, which is useful for formulating additional pertinent controls.
References:
• http://www.cloudsecurityalliance.org/csaguide.pdf.
• Guidelines for Secure Use of Cloud Computing by Federal Departments and Agencies
5.4.4 Risk of Account Compromise
Description: A benefit of cloud computing is easy accessibility. A consumer can use cloud
computing services anywhere they have Internet access. However, Internet threats such as phishing,
pharming, and spyware are designed to steal usernames and passwords (credentials). Given this
Internet security threat environment, consumers adopting cloud computing need to understand how
user accounts are protected from hijacking and misuse.
Importance: Account hijacking is not new, but the concern is heightened in the context of cloud
computing because:
• There is additional attack surface exposure due to increased complexity and dynamic
infrastructure allocation;
• New APIs/interfaces are emerging that are untested; and
• The consumer’s account, if hijacked, may be used to steal information, manipulate data, and
defraud others, or to attack other tenants as an insider in the multi-tenancy environment.
Mitigation 1: Consumers need to take steps to verify and cloud service providers need to implement
strong authentication mechanisms, including:
• Enforcement of strong passwords and periodic password changes;
• Multifactor authentication;
• Prompts to require users to enter passwords during sessions, and in response to suspicious
events;
• Use of a white-listed address range to constraint logins; and
Mitigation 2: Consumers need to take steps to verify and cloud service providers need to apply
encryption to credentials and credential exchanges, including:

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• Provision of a dedicated VPN;
• Use of HTTPS and LDAPS;
• Measures to enable secure cookies; and
• Use of strong cryptographic PKI keys.
Mitigation 3: Use the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) mechanisms
to efficiently manage the identities while users' privacy is protected.
NSTIC provides the means of creating a secure, trusted Identity Ecosystem that is capable of
establishing a user-centric privacy protection for any Cloud Ecosystem. The mechanisms employed
by an Identity Ecosystem are structured in a robust framework composed of the overarching set of
interoperability standards, risk models, privacy and liability policies, requirements, and
accountability mechanisms.
Mitigation 4: Secure APIs/interfaces
Consumers need to take steps to verify and cloud service providers need to provide common
security models for cloud APIs/interfaces (e.g., WS*, WS-I, SAML for Web services).
Consumers need to take steps to verify and cloud providers need to protect application security
using secure APIs/interfaces (e.g., input validation/escaping/encoding against injection exploits
such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting).
References:
• National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC)
• Symantec Internet Security Threat Report, Trends for 2010, Volume 16, April 2011
5.4.5 Identity Credential and Access Management (ICAM) and Authorization
Description: Unauthorized access to sensitive information in public, private, and hybrid clouds is a
major security concern. Even though identity credential and access management (ICAM) has long
been used to manage users and their access to IT resources, there is a need to specify ICAMs in
terms of identity proofing, strength of credentials, and access control mechanisms for effective
federal cloud-based authentication and authorization.
Importance: High. The identity credential and access management (ICAM) needs to be effective
and scalable, and considered in the context of multiple clouds. To achieve effectiveness and
scalability, seamless extension of controls from agencies to the cloud is needed. Establishing trust
relationships between cloud consumers and cloud providers and potentially identity, credential, and
attribute providers is key.
Mitigation 1: Consumers and cloud service providers need to specify use of the provider’s ICAM
for cloud-based services and use of agency ICAM for internal systems and functions.
There is a need to not only consider the effort in creating user identities and account provisioning.

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Mitigation 2: Consumers and cloud service providers need to specify the degree and method of
integrating the agency’s ICAM with cloud-based services.
For example, cloud providers may accept agency-created identity credentials, verify attributes of
users and objects through accepted techniques and enforce authentication and authorization policies
in a context-aware fashion.
Mitigation 3: Consumers and cloud service providers need to consider and specify claim-based
Federated Identity Management
In this example, a single sign-on (SSO) solution that relies on an external identity system to provide
cloud services with information about the user (claims) along with cryptographic assurance (a
security token) that the identity data comes from a trusted source (an issuing authority). Cloud
services can then make authentication and authorization decisions based on these supplied claims.
There are many types of issuing authorities, from domain controllers that issue Kerberos tickets, to
certificate authorities (CAs) that issue X.509 certificates.
Consumers and cloud service providers also need to consider and may specify use of unifying
standards such as SAML to exchange authentication and authorization decisions between security
domains (for example, identity providers and service providers).
Mitigation 4: Digital Identity
Consumers and cloud service providers also need to consider and may specify emerging user-
centric technologies such as Information Cards (for federal agencies, PIV cards) or OpenID. Rather
than centering on a directory (domain-centric), digital identity is focused around the user, enabling
users to apply their digital IDs to use of cloud services, with on-the-spot validation (similar in
concept to the way driver’s licenses are used in the real world to establish the identify of
individuals). This solution is consistent with the scalability and flexibility requirements to support
use of multiple and various cloud services.
Mitigation 5: Standards-based Access Control
No matter what access control model (discretionary access control, mandatory access control, role-
based access control, or attribute-based access control) is used, consumers and cloud service
providers also need to consider emerging standards such as XACML to express and enforce
confidentiality and integrity requirements in a flexible and unifying way for a variety of cloud
environments. The flexibility allows an agency to specify and deploy access control policies to
match its mixture of assets and portfolio of business functions, and to plug in additional policies as
business and infrastructure evolve. The unity is designed to express access control policies in a
single language and format to support use of multiple and various cloud services.
Mitigation 6: Use the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) mechanisms
to efficiently manage the identities while users' privacy is protected.
NSTIC provides the means of creating a secure, trusted Identity Ecosystem that is capable of
establishing a user-centric privacy protection for any Cloud Ecosystem. The mechanisms employed
by an Identity Ecosystem are structured in a robust framework composed of the overarching set of
interoperability standards, risk models, privacy and liability policies, requirements, and
accountability mechanisms.

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References:
• XACML http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/2406/oasis-xacml-1.0.pdf
• DHS Top Security Controls
• SAJACC Identity in the Cloud - Use Cases Version 1.0 OASIS
• SAJACC NIST Cloud Computing Use Cases
• Electronic Authentication Guideline. NIST Special Publication 800-63 Version 1.0.2
• National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC)
5.4.6 Multi-Tenancy Risks and Concerns
Description: Cloud computing provides the potential to reduce costs through resource sharing.
Different tenants use services provided on common cloud computing hardware and software
simultaneously. The most common intuitive concerns are that:
• A tenant may access to other tenants’ virtual machines, network traffic, actual/residual data, or
other resources; and
• A tenant may impact the normal operation of other tenants, access their data or identities.
Importance: Although many network services and programs have simultaneously supported
multiple tenants in the past, cloud computing elevates this concern because the resource sharing is
pervasive, exposes many possibly vulnerable interfaces, and potentially occurs at a very large scale.
Thus, this is a new challenge and federal agencies are not familiar with this kind of massive
resource sharing and its security ramifications. The uncertainty may impede the adoption of cloud
computing. The following mitigations address these concerns by ascertaining application separation
and data encryption in cloud computing.
Mitigation 1: Consumers need to take steps to verify and cloud service providers need to apply data
encryption, including the following aspects:
• Data in transit: Encrypt data using a one-time session key similar to how SSL/TLS works.
• Data at rest: Selectively encrypt sensitive data using NIST 140-2 validated algorithms;
• Manage keys separately from data with higher privileges and preferably make them accessible
only through defined procedures/programs;
• Change keys periodically and ensure that data is unencrypted and re-encrypted with the new
key; and
• Compile and/or wrap the encryption procedure/program to hide additional data transformation
or padding to make it even harder for a snooper to get the key.
Application Partitioning, including:
• Separate access control functionality from business processing functionality;

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• Separate logic processing functionality from data access functionality;
• Separate user functionality from system management functionality; and
• Aggregate functionalities with similar security requirements to run in the same virtual
environment and take advantage of modern compartmentalized data centers (vLANs/sub-
network zones with varying levels of security controls).
logical separation, including:
• Secure the virtualization server (hypervisor isolation settings to limit accesses);
• Secure the virtual network by working hand-in-hand with the physical network security,
especially against man in the middle attacks (MAC spoofing and ARP poisoning); and
• Harden the VM so that the virtualization layer is not exposed to attack.
Mitigation 4: The risks associated with multi-tenancy could also be mitigated through physical
separation which can be provisioned to consumers with special security requirements and which
implies the use of special virtual environments with physical separation of the full-stack cloud
infrastructure.
References:
• Draft Cloud Computing Synopsis and Recommendations -
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/drafts/800-146/Draft-NIST-SP800-146.pdf
• Proposed Security Assessment & Authorization for U.S. Government Cloud Computing -
http://www.cio.gov/pages.cfm/page/Federal-Risk-and-Authorization-Management-Program-
FedRAMP
• Security Guidance for Critical Areas of Focus in Cloud Computing V2.1 -
https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/guidance/csaguide.v2.1.pdf
• Top Threats to Cloud Computing V1.0 -
https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/topthreats/csathreats.v1.0.pdf
• SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS: a Security Checklist for Cloud Models -
http://www.csoonline.com/article/print/660065
• Cloud – 10 Risks with Cloud IT Foundation Tier - https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Cloud-
10_Risks_with_Cloud_IT_Foundation_Tier
• Edward L. Haletky, “VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security”, Prentice Hall, 2009,
ISBN-13: 978-0-137-15800-3.
• Cloud Computing and Security – A Natural Match -
http://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/files/resource_files/1F4DEE3D-1A4B-B294-
D0AD0742BA449E07/Cloud%20Computing%20and%20Security%20Whitepaper_July29.2010
.pdf.

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• Edward L. Haletky, “VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security”, Prentice Hall, 2009,
ISBN-13: 978-0-137-15800-3.
5.4.7 Cloud-based Denial of Service
Description: Because cloud consumers depend on functional networks to access their resources, and
because networks are often not under consumer control, there is a perceived increase risk that
services provided using the cloud model may not be available. Note: High latency on the cloud
carrier network and operational errors that have been widely observed and reported over the last
year may have the same net effect as a successful Denial of Service (DoS) attack.
Importance: DoS attacks are not new, but cloud computing has increased the attack surface.
Internally accessed applications become remotely accessible when provided as cloud services, and
are exposed to network-based DoS threats. Through multi-tenancy, DoS attacks can be launched by
insiders through shared resources, as in the case of side channel attacks. Malicious users can
theoretically initiate distributed DoS using the vast resources of cloud at a new level of severity.
Mitigation 1: The cloud consumer may adopt a hybrid approach, potentially through a cloud broker,
to contract with two or more cloud providers. This improves the probability that an outage
experienced by one cloud provider will not result in total loss of cloud consumer access to cloud-
based data unless cloud provider two also experiences an outage or share a common vulnerability
(e.g., exposure to a national emergency or critical infrastructure).
Mitigation 2: The cloud consumer may contract with a cloud carrier (or cloud broker) for diverse
network access from consumer site(s). Cloud consumer site(s) access diversity can take the form of
ingress/egress, route, switch, serving wire center and interconnection points.
Mitigation 3: The cloud consumer may contract a cloud carrier, or cloud broker, to supply
redundant consumer premises equipment (CPE) with failover (FO) capability to provide high-
availability network access to complement diverse network access to cloud provider network. The
cloud carrier, through its transport agent, for example, may provide required equipment as part of
the cloud-based service contract with appropriate SLAs.
References:
• Cloud Security Alliance, The Cloud Control Matrix
• Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP)
• NIST SP 500-291, Cloud Computing Standards Roadmap
• NIST SP 500-292, Cloud Computing Reference Architecture
• NIST SP 500-293, US Government Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap Volume 1,
• High-Priority Requirements to Further USG Agency Cloud Computing Adoption
• NIST SP 500-293, US Government Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap Volume III,
• Technical Considerations for USG Cloud Computing Deployment Decisions (Draft)

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• NIST SP 800-53, Recommended Security Controls for Federal Information Systems and
Organizations, Revision 3
5.4.8 Incident Response
Description: Incident response and computer forensics in a cloud environment require different
tools, techniques, and training to accurately assess a situation and capture appropriate evidence
when conducting an incident response that follows federal incident response guidelines. The
response plan should address the possibility that incidents, including privacy breaches and classified
spills, may impact the cloud and shared cloud consumers.
Importance: This requirement highlights the need to update guidance and procedures to comply
with federal incident response and reporting requirements and mission operational needs in a cloud
environment.
Mitigation: Cloud providers should develop and provide a documented incident response plan that
is consistent with existing federal guidance and supports the robust NIST four-phase incident
handling guide that is implemented within the federal government. This incident response life cycle
consist of Preparation, Detection and Analysis, Containment, Eradication, and Recovery, and Post-
Incident Activity.7
7
NIST SP 800-61, Computer Security Incident Handling Guide

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6 Summary and Next Steps
The USG Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap, including Volume II, Useful Information for
Cloud Adopters, and the work that was used as the basis to draft it, was completed in less than one
year. Volume II is not an exhaustive or complete reference of technical work in the subject areas of
cloud computing reference architecture and taxonomy, business and technical use cases, standards,
and security.
It is intended to be a first step toward a two-fold objective:
• Strategic – to support the identification and communication of high-priority USG Cloud
Computing Requirements by providing an explanation of the objective rationale for the
assertion that these are not currently met to the extent needed; and
• Tactical – to support adopters in the interim period while the cloud model and implementation is
maturing by providing information to help make informed decisions, in this case, through a
consolidated guide to existing NIST collaborative and projects work and conclusions.
To achieve the goals for USG Cloud Computing Adoption, it is necessary to work on both levels.
To make progress, there is a need to explicitly agree on what the strategic priorities are. This seems
very basic in the context that at various cloud symposiums, the same subjects are discussed, but
there wasn’t an existing confirmed list. There are in some cases alternative lists, and many sources
for elements to be included in a consolidated list – numerous publications by academic, standards,
and industry organizations, and government agencies. However, these are “centric” to and
developed from the perspective of the organization that drafted them. Moreover, when consolidated,
they yield hundreds of requirements. The roadmap process assessed and synthesized the inputs from
a broad set of collaborators and sources, and applied some level of research and analysis to
determine the priorities and Priority Action Plans, identified as candidates for self-tasking by the
cloud community presented in Volume I. These are presented for comment, and the expectation is
that the Volume I high-priority requirements will be refined and satisfied over a multiyear time
frame, consistent with technology development cycles.
Volume II summarizes the work that not only supports these priorities, but provides some level of
information, help, and tools for the short term. Each major area of work has a very specific tactical
collaborative process which is under way, which relate to the PAPs listed in Volume I, and which
can immediately go forward with cloud computing community participation:
• Use of the Reference Architecture and Taxonomy by cloud service providers to consistently
categorize services so that USG agencies can compare services and products more easily; (SP
500-292), applied to Service-Level Agreement specifications;
• Continued identification and development of Cloud Computing interoperability, portability, and
security standards, including USG involvement, and starting with the current list identified in
the NIST Cloud Computing Standards Roadmap (SP 500-291);
• Development and exchange of additional USG Target Business Use Cases and their SAJAAC
technical counterparts; leverage the SAJACC process and portal to continue the qualitative test
process that was demonstrated through proof-of-concept;

77
• Assessment of existing IT security management and technical controls and solutions in the
context of the high-priority security requirement challenges, and development of the mitigation
solutions; and
• Additional application of complex computing research to the Cloud Computing model.

78
7 Appendix A – Service Level Agreement (SLA) Taxonomy and Metrics
This section focuses on relevant issues to the cloud computing model that arose during the
November 2010 – September 2011 course of study, including the NIST-chaired public working
groups. Discussions on these topics are well suited to and will continue to be studied by subgroups.
SERVICE-LEVEL AGREEMENT TAXONOMY
At the completion of version 1.0 of the
Reference Architecture (RA) the Taxonomy
subgroup was asked to identify additional areas
of cloud computing that could be better defined
through the development of appropriate
taxonomies. The group reached immediate
consensus that cloud Service-Level Agreements
would be an ideal area for an additional
taxonomy. (The SLA is a contract between a
cloud service provider and a cloud service
consumer that specifies, in measurable terms,
what services and guarantees the cloud provider
will provide.)
A survey of publicly available SLAs showed that
while numerous cloud SLAs exist, there is little
harmonization between the different types, key
elements, and vocabulary. With no universally
accepted cloud SLA format, no clear guidance
on how required policies can be mapped to a
SLA, and differing terminology, it was clear that
the area of cloud SLAs could be enhanced
through the development of a suitable taxonomy.
Creating a SLA taxonomy would establish both
a SLA classification system (identifying key
elements that should exist within a given SLA)
as well as a controlled vocabulary of terms and
definitions (which would facilitate meaningful
communication). With this clear need identified,
the group then proceeded to work on a draft cloud SLA taxonomy.
The first issue encountered was identifying the proper level at which to start the taxonomy. The
natural inclination is to start with cloud Service-Level Agreements, but it is apparent that starting
one level of abstraction higher (at what is often referred to as the Master Term of Service-level)
provided a better grounding for establishing the common understanding of the domain. This also
helped separate many of the traditional elements of a SLA (non-cloud specific) to be dealt with at
the higher level. This was an important distinction since SLAs have existed for some time, and this
would allow the group to focus its efforts on cloud specific elements of the SLAs.
Highlights: Through the procedure of
defining the cloud computing reference
architecture, the NIST-led cloud computing
reference architecture working group also
identified cloud SLAs as an important gap
that needs further clarification.
In April 2011, the SLA subgroup was formed
and a survey of the publicly available cloud
SLAs was conducted.
The study showed the disparities and
ambiguities in cloud providers’ SLAs, which
confirms the necessity for industry and USG
agencies to develop “Technical
Specifications to Enable Consistent, High-
Quality Service-Level Agreements” - NIST
USG Cloud Computing Technology
Roadmap Vol.1, Requirement 3.
Note: NIST has provided the SLA Taxonomy
to the General Services Administration for
reference in its development of cloud
computing procurement guidance.

79
After the starting point was established, the resources identified by the group where then reviewed
to identify common elements that should appear within a SLA. These elements were then organized
into two mindmaps (pictorial representations of taxonomies) that reflect the planned separation into
the master terms of service and the cloud Service-Level Agreements. Within the master term of
service mindmap, a sub child of the top element was then identified as the cloud Service-Level
Agreement (CSLA), which would then hold the cloud-specific SLA elements.
The two mindmaps generated by this exercise are listed below:
Figure 8: Service-Level Agreement Generic Concepts Mindmap

80
Figure 9: Cloud-Specific SLA Concepts Mindmap
In the CSLA mindmap, several interesting items were identified. First was the fact that within the
CLSA, there was a split between elements that support business-level objectives and service-level
objectives. Second, an enforceable SLA requires measurable cloud service metrics, which supports
the concept of a “resource” which is only implied in the main RA documentation. In the exercise, it
was notable that in many cases, the objectives could be mapped to the NIST CC RA which provides
additional support to the RA structure.
This exercise was valuable in that it helped
perform a survey of the key elements that should
appear within a cloud-focused SLA.
CLOUD SERVICE METRICS
At the completion of version 1.0 of the
Reference Architecture (RA) the Reference
Architecture working group was asked to
identify additional areas of cloud computing that
would affect interoperability, portability and
security. The group identified the specification
of the metrics in the context of cloud services as
critical to the development and use of efficient
inter-connected cloud computing services.
Highlights: Through the procedure of
defining the cloud computing reference
architecture, the NIST-led cloud computing
reference architecture working group also
identified cloud service metrics as an
important gap that needs further clarification.
In January 2012, the Cloud Metrics subgroup
was formed and a survey of the domain of
metrics related to cloud service was
conducted.
The study showed the disparities and
ambiguities in cloud metrics, which confirms
the necessity for industry and USG agencies
to develop “Defined and implemented
cloud service metrics” - NIST USG Cloud
Computing Technology Roadmap Vol.1,
Requirement 10.

81
Furthermore NIST identified in its definition of cloud computing a “Measured Service” as being
one of the five essential characteristics of the cloud computing model.
The Reference Architecture working formed the Cloud Metrics subgroup with the mission to tackle
this problem.
A survey of publically available documents referencing service oriented metrics; metrics usage etc.
showed that as of today the measurement space is not necessarily well defined. Common
terminologies (i.e. measures, metrics) or sets of measurement artifacts (i.e. units of measurements,
metrics) often have several definitions, which makes it very difficult for the consumer to compare
services or rely on third party tools to monitor the health of the service. It can also make it difficult
for the provider to show that the service is performing correctly or to allow its service to enter into
complex cloud service chain or federation.
The group also surveyed work done by organizations on metrics with the intent to gather as much
knowledge as possible on existing metrics to either reuse them, adapt them to cloud services or
identify gaps. Some organizations have already published documents defining valuable metrics.
Other organizations have work on describing possible frameworks or measurement methods or have
started efforts on the domain of cloud measurement.
This effort led to the creation of a metric concept model whose purpose is to identify and
characterize the information and relationships needed to efficiently and consistently define and use
measures, metrics and plans in the context of cloud services.
The Figure 10 below represents the high level view of the concept model. The content of the grey
boxes define the three primary entities. The content of the respective colored boxes show some
characteristics of these entities. For instance the Metric entity relies on a Measure entity and can
have minimum and maximum limits that if reached will trigger an action.
Figure 10: High Level View of Metric Concept Model

82
The ability to organize the information relevant to cloud service metrics and measures and their
connections to plans like SLAs is very important as it allows stakeholders to better collect, assess
and compare different aspects of the cloud services they intend to manipulate.
8 Appendix B – RELIABILITY RESEARCH IN CLOUD-BASED COMPLEX
SYSTEMS
Cloud computing systems are complex, encompassing enormous scale and capability. This
complexity implies that
1) Failures in such systems can emerge from event sequences that are difficult to predict; and
2) The consequences of those failures, which typically require substantial time to diagnose and
repair, can prove quite costly.
These factors, along with numerous and continuing failures in cloud computing systems, led NIST
to identify the need:
 To formulate and publish best practices on achieving reliability;
 To develop a consensus process to measure and report industry-wide cloud reliability
information;
 To develop methods for measurement and monitoring to predict onset of catastrophic failure
in cloud systems; and
 To investigate tools to identify failure vulnerabilities in designs and deployments.
NIST researchers are pioneering methods to model, analyze, and predict global behavior in complex
information systems, such as the Internet and computational grids and clouds.
With respect to cloud systems, these modeling and analysis methods have been used to compare
resource-allocation algorithms and to discover potential virtual machine leakage vulnerabilities in
open-source IaaS clouds.89
Future NIST research will focus on adapting modeling and analysis tools
from the physical sciences to identify failure vulnerabilities in designs and deployments of IaaS
cloud systems and related cloud applications. Success in this research will enable designers and
providers of cloud systems to identify potential reliability vulnerabilities and to develop designs and
deployment strategies to mitigate those vulnerabilities, leading to increased cloud reliability, and
reducing the costs associated with extensive cloud failures.
8
Koala: A Discrete‐Event Simulation Model of Infrastructure Clouds, K. Mills, J. Filliben and C. Dabrowski
9
C. Dabrowski and K. Mills, VM Leakage and Orphan Control in Open-Source Clouds

83
NIST researchers are currently planning to investigate measurement and monitoring regimes that
can predict the onset of catastrophic failure in cloud systems. Success on this latter research can
improve the effectiveness of monitoring and measurement regimes designed and deployed by cloud
providers.

84
9 Appendix C – Useful References
The following sources may be useful for further reference.
NIST Special Publications and Drafts
- NIST Special Publication 800-53, Recommended Security Controls for Federal Information
Systems and Organizations.
- NIST Special Publication 800-61, Rev.1, Computer Security Incident Handling Guide.
- NIST Special Publications 800-144, Guidelines on Security and Privacy Issues in Public
Cloud Computing.
- NIST Special Publication 800-145, A NIST Definition of Cloud Computing.
- NIST Special Publication 800-146, NIST Cloud Computing Synopsis and
Recommendations.
- NIST Cloud Computing Use Cases
- NIST IR-7756, DRAFT CAESARS Framework Extension: An Enterprise Continuous
Monitoring Technical Reference Architecture.
Other Sources
- Apache, LibCloud, http://incubator.apache.org/libcloud/
- Charlton, Stuart. Cloud Computing and the Next Generation of Enterprise Architecture, Sys-
Con Cloud Computing Expo. San Jose, CA: 2008.
- Chief Information Officers Council, Privacy Recommendations for the Use of Cloud
Computing by Federal Departments and Agencies. 19 August 2010.
- CISCO, Cisco Cloud Computing - Data Center Strategy, Architecture, and Solutions: Points
of View White Paper for U.S. Public Sector, 1st edition. 2009.
- Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), Security Guidance for Critical Areas of Focus in Cloud
Computing V2.1, December 2009.
- Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), Top Threats to Cloud Computing V1.0, March 2010.

85
- Cockburn, Alistair, Writing Effective Use Cases, Addison-Wesley, 2001.
- CSO Security and Risk Online, SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS: a Security Checklist for Cloud
Models. 31 January 2011.
- Department of Homeland Security, National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace:
Creating Options for Enhanced Online Security and Privacy, DRAFT, 25 June 2010.
- Distributed Management Task Force, Inc. (DMTF), Interoperable Clouds: A White Paper
from the Open Cloud Standards Incubator V1.0.0, DSP-IS0101, 11 November 2009.
- Distributed Management Task Force, Inc. (DMTF), Architecture for Managing Clouds: A
White Paper from the Open Cloud Standards Incubator V1.0.0, DSP-IS0102, 18 June 2010.
- Distributed Management Task Force, Inc. (DMTF), Use Cases and Interactions for
Managing Clouds: A White Paper from the Open Cloud Standards Incubator V1.0.0, DSP-
IS0103, 18 June 2010.
- Federal CIO Council, Proposed Security Assessment & Authorization for U.S. Government
Cloud Computing. Draft version 0.96, 2 November 2010.
- Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA), December 2002.
- Federal Standard 1037C, Telecommunications: Glossary of Telecommunications Terms,
7 August 1996.
- Gartner, Gartner Says Cloud Consumers Need Brokerages to Unlock the Potential of Cloud
Services. 9 July 2009.
- Gasser, Morrie. Building a Secure Computer System, Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1988.
- Global Inter-Cloud Technology Forum (GICTF), Use Cases and Functional Requirements
for Inter-Cloud Computing White Paper, 9 August 2010.
- GSA, Cloud Computing Initiative Vision and Strategy Document (DRAFT), February 2010.
- Haletky, Edward L. VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security, Prentice Hall,
2009.
IBM, Introducing the IBM Security Framework and IBM Security Blueprint to Realize
BusinessDriven Security, 5 November 2010.

86
IBM, Cloud Computing Reference Architecture 2.0, February 2011.
Juniper Networks, Cloud-ready Data Center Reference Architecture, February 2011.
“Non-repudiation” IBM WebSphere MQ Information Center, 3 May 2011.
OASIS, OASIS Privacy Management Reference Model Technical Committee Charter
Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Federal Cloud Computing Strategy. 8 February 2011.
Office of Management and Budget, Memorandum 07-16, Safeguarding Against and Responding to
the Breach of Personally Identifiable Information. 22 May 2007.
The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), Section 21.3.
Open Security Architecture (OSA), SP-011: Cloud Computing Patterns.
The Open Web Application Security Project, Cloud – 10 Risks with Cloud IT Foundation Tier. 26
July 2009.
OpenCrowd, Cloud Taxonomy.
Storage Network Industry Association (SNIA), Cloud Storage for Cloud Computing, September
2009.
Storage Network Industry Association (SNIA), Cloud Storage Use Cases, 8 June 2009.
Symantec, Internet Security Threat Report, Trends for 2010, Volume 16, April 2011.
“Taxonomy.” Webopedia.com, 2011.
Trusted Computing Group, Cloud Computing and Security- A Natural Match, April 2010

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