National Australia Bank is formulating a set of standard service level agreements that may be used by companies worldwide for securing data in public and private cloud applications.
The NAB initiative is one of the key goals of the Intel-inspired Open Data Centre Alliance, a consortium of multinational corporations and IT suppliers who have come together to spearhead the adoption of cloud technology in the business sector. NAB is one of the 13-member-steering committee, which also includes Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase and UBS.
At an ODCA meeting in Melbourne, NAB announced plans to deliver a security standards proof of concept, and template, that could be used to evalaute the level of protection offered by cloud providers. The bank is positing a set of accreditation standards from bronze to platinum, to which suppliers would need to comply. Platinum would offer military-grade protection, while gold would meet the needs of financial services firms.
Adam Bennett, chief information officer, National Australia Bank, says: "To fully take advantage of cloud solutions, our security SLAs must extend across all computing environments regardless whether using a dedicated cloud service available via a private cloud or a service shared with other subscribers via a public cloud. The security provider requirements specified by ODCA provide a great step forward towards our goal for secure delivery of cloud solutions."