Check out an interview with Fernando Gebara, coordinator of the local commission
The Brazilian Association of Technical Standards (ABNT) held, between October 6th and 11th, 2014, a meeting with international authorities in the field of cloud computing. The plenary meeting held at Microsoft Brazil, in São Paulo, brought together the members of the subcommittee ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 38 – Distributed application platforms and services (DAPS), responsible for defining and publishing international technical standards for cloud computing, oriented architecture to services (SOA) and web services.
More than 40 representatives from countries such as Germany, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, South Korea, United States, Ireland, Israel, Japan, United Kingdom and Sweden attended. Several projects related to cloud computing were discussed and the first version of the project on Service Level Agreements in Cloud Computing was defined, which will be distributed to the member countries of the subcommittee (including Brazil) for analysis and proposals for alteration and complementation. Since the creation of the subcommittee, this was the first time that the meeting takes place in a South American country.
Fernando Gebara Filho, coordinator of the ABNT/CE-21:000.38 local commission, in an interview with Portal ABES, tells how the meeting went, the main points discussed and the importance of Brazil's participation in the international standardization of information technology.
Why hold a plenary focused on cloud computing?
Cloud computing is one of the great technological changes we are witnessing today. For consumers, it allows them to have their information always available on any type of device, anytime and anywhere in the world as long as an Internet connection is available. For companies, its adoption is synonymous with savings and optimization of network resources, with the possibility of a rapid increase in capacity without the need for hardware investments and changes in the computing environment.
The JTC 1/SC 38 subcommittee is responsible for establishing international cloud computing standards and Brazil is a voting member of this committee, through ABNT/CE-21:000.38 committee, and has been sending delegates to international meetings since 2012.
As an active member of this subcommittee, Brazil invited its members to one of the biannual meetings to be held here and we are honored by the acceptance of the invitation and the large presence of international delegates in Brazil. The country is once again positioned as an important member of the international information technology standardization community.
What are the duties of the subcommittee?
The subcommittee draws up international standards that help stabilize the market, both on the side of technology and service providers and on the side of consumers, who will have a better chance of understanding what they are actually buying and what is the expectation of the quality of service to be offered .
Two works of this subcommittee were carried out in collaboration with the International Telecommunication Union, with expanded participation from countries and contributions from telecommunication companies. This ensures that market regulators will be working with a more stabilized market in the areas of common vocabulary and reference architecture.
What are the main goals of the project?
Determine gaps in the international standards that govern the provision of cloud computing services, filling these gaps with consensus content between several countries, enabling the possibility of continuing to offer global services, thus avoiding regional differences that may confuse the market or hinder exports services. At the same time, the possibility for any country to join the subcommittee and have specialists working in small and medium-sized companies in its group, guarantees the equalization of opportunities among all those with active participation.
What were the most critical points of the debate, with less consensus among the participants?
We cannot say that there is any point with less consensus than others. The new projects (Service Level Agreement, Interoperability and Portability, Data Flow between Devices and Service Providers) were unanimously approved by the subcommittee voting countries and their development follows the normal progress of JTC 1 projects. more to be achieved, but this is part of the process and guarantees much better standards and more adapted to the reality of the markets.
What points would you like to highlight from the final document and the advances made?
We are very pleased with the recent approval by both the ITU and the JTC 1 of the Vocabulary and Reference Architecture projects, as they form the common basis of understanding among stakeholders in this area of standardization. The works for the new projects continue in full swing, with excellent contributions and great expectations regarding the final results.
In order to have a more effective participation from Brazil, we are encouraging the participation of Brazilian specialists in the local commission.
The committee coordinator is available for contact at fernando.gebara@lucianogebara.com.
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