Abstract

Growth of cloud computing as a concept continues to pose challenges on how to deliver agile, yet secure, IT services to enterprises. While the hype surrounding cloud computing may have peaked, the concept of “cloudwashing” (adding the term “cloud” to an existing service for marketing reasons) continues to cause confusion and inflated expectations with enterprise buyers. This fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) just slows down the growth of a potentially larger market. This is especially true for small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) who turn to IT providers to handle the underlying systems for their businesses. To assist cloud service buyers, a recent communication from the European Commission advocated voluntary certification for cloud service providers. This has sparked a debate as to the relevance and authority of certification bodies in verifying the ability and capability of cloud service providers (CSP). In this research in progress paper, we present the current status of our research on examining what role third party certifiers can play in adoption of cloud by SMEs, with a case study of one certifier in Europe already involved in market adoption to test our framework.

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