Source: Information WeekNovell and the Cloud Security Alliance have announced a vendor-neutral "Trusted Cloud Initiative" for developing standards and certification of cloud security, compliance, identity management and other best practices.

While cloud computing is a popular topic, it lacks a set of well-defined terms and standards that tell prospective users concrete information about the environment they're about to adopt.

Businesses considering adopting cloud computing lack assurances they will be able to continue to control their data, enforce best practices and guarantee security, said Jim Reavis, executive director of the Cloud Security Alliance Monday.

The Cloud Security Alliance is a group of consultants, vendors, and cloud users that formed a non-profit group at the end of 2008 to address the lack of standards for cloud computing.

If a prospective cloud user and a vendor talk about level three security in the cloud, one may have a completely different idea of what the other is saying. There are no defined levels of security in cloud computing, and it's difficult to get a discussion going when one party can't be sure of the terms that the other is using. The Trusted Cloud Initiative is aimed in part at creating a shared set of standards that can be verified by neutral third parties.

"By building a consensus security reference guide and certification roadmap, we are creating common ground for both enterprises and cloud providers, and expect to accelerate cloud adoption," said Alan Boehme, senior VP IT strategy and enterprise architecture at ING Americas, a branch of the Dutch insurance conglomerate, in Monday's announcement. Boehme is a member of the board of directors of the Cloud Security Alliance. Read more here