A committee of 71 Cloud technologists worked with TechAmerica, a Washington, DC-based industry association, to produce "Cloud2," a report that makes 14 specific recommendations to government IT buyers and to Members of Congress and the White House.

The committee was headed by Marc Benioff and Michael Capellas, and featured leading Cloud advocates from across the spectrum of the technology industry.

I've already argued that the report simultaneously doesn't go far enough yet can serve as a global model. I've also followed up with some of the committee members to get their takes as to next steps for their companies.

Juan Carlos Soto, senior vice president and general manager, Cloud & B2B at Redwood City, CA-based Informatica, was one of the first to respond.

What's Most Important?
To me the key question is, "what key areas stand out as the most important among the 14 recommendations made in this report?" (The report made recommendations in the areas of trust, transnational data flows, transparency, and transformation.)

Juan Carlos noted that all of these areas are "very important," and went on to say:

"The recommendations under Transnational Data Flows and Transformation deal largely with policy.

"(But the) recommendations under Trust and Transparency deal largely with operational issues and are the areas most immediately actionable across both the public and the private sector.

"Specifically, recommendations 9 and 10 together address the most common concerns companies have when evaluating cloud solutions - Security and Integration.

"Recommendations 9 and 10 together urge Cloud providers to operate in ways that give customers clear insights into the cloud service operations and its status at all times so they understand the levels of security and controls protecting their data.

"They also recommend Cloud providers provide their customers full control of their data by adopting standards to increase interoperability and portability, offering a robust set of interfaces and tools, and supporting an ecosystem of third-party solutions to provide access to cloud data and facilitate cloud data integration with other IT systems."

And Next Steps?
I also asked him about the next steps Informatica is considering when it comes to the report's recommendations. He responded as follows:

"Informatica is a market leader in Cloud Data Integration and is committed to continuous innovation in Cloud and on-premise solutions to help public and private enterprises adopting Cloud computing get the most from their cloud solutions.

"(So) Informatica will continue delivering market leading data integration solutions that can be deployed on-premise, in private or public cloud infrastructures, or consumed as a true, multi-tenant SaaS integration service - Informatica Cloud.

"As new cloud services come on-line, Informatica will continue to provide connectivity to the leading services enabling companies to quickly integrate them seamlessly and securely into their existing IT systems."

He also referred me to Informatica's trust site.

And on the subject of standards, he noted, "Informatica will monitor cloud standards activities and as new ones emerge, Informatica will adopt the standards that provide our customers secure access and enhanced control over their cloud data."

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