Cloud Computing Rights and Responsibilities

Do you know your cloud service rights? The complexity of today's cloud computing environment has motivated Gartners Global IT Council for Cloud Services to define the six rights (and one responsibility) of cloud service customers. The goal: to help cloud providers and their customers establish successful business relationships.

Although their tone reminds us vaguely of the U.S. Miranda Rights, the spirit of these rights and responsibilities outlined by Gartner serve as a best-practices guideline for enterprises looking to deploy cloud-based solutions. The Council, which consists of CIOs of large enterprises that consume cloud services and Gartner analysts, has made it a priority to identify the key rights of cloud service consumers and how these might be upheld.

"If cloud services are commoditized, providers should offer stronger customer guarantees," says Daryl Plummer, managing vice president and Gartner fellow, in a prepared statement. "However, service providers either do not offer protections or vary greatly in the protections they do offer. We believe that the Global IT Council for Cloud Services can facilitate improvements in industry practices that will benefit not only IT customers and clients, but also developers, vendors and other stakeholders."