Cloud Computing Contracts

Abstract

In cloud computing, a cloud service-brokering framework mediates between cloud service users (CSUs) and cloud service providers (CSPs) to facilitate the availability of cloud services to the users according to their requirements from multi-cloud environment. The current cloud service brokering framework considers the service performance commitments of CSPs, but it is not aware of current legal/regulatory compliance status of CSPs when recommending services to the users. A cloud contract (terms of service, Service Level Agreement (SLA)) helps cloud users in their decision making to select an appropriate CSP according to their expectations. CSUs feedback and survey report show that users are still not satisfied with the current terms and conditions committed to by CSPs. They believe that the terms and conditions are unclear or unbalanced, which they sometimes are when in favour of CSPs. In this paper, we identify some major issues to be included in cloud contract to make it safe and fair to all parties involved in the agreement from the European Union (EU) data protection perspective. Another contribution of the paper is analyzing cloud contracts (their terms of service and SLAs) offered by international CSPs in respect of the standard guidelines recommended by different independent bodies to include in the cloud contracts. This information is visualized in a sorting table, called a Heat Map table, which gives a clear picture of the regulatory compliance status of CSPs in their cloud contract documents.