Towards IT-Legal Framework for Cloud Computing

As the common understanding of Cloud Computing is continuously evolving, the terminology and concepts used to define it often need clarifying. Therefore, Cloud customers and Cloud Providers are used to dispute about Service Level Agreements, Service Level Objectives and Quality of Service. Simultaneously, SLAs/SLOs/QoS represent other related technical problems such as Security, Privacy, Compliancy and others. Technical problems are usually defined within technical context, where both parties ignore analyzing problem's legally related causes. In fact, these problems are stemming from the mapping and translating of surrounding laws and regulations into technical terms. In this paper we propose an IT based Legal Framework for Cloud Computing. It helps Cloud customers and Cloud Providers to avoid having such problems. Also it manages the interlocks in the gray area between the IT department and the legal department via setting clear boundaries, resolving conflict of interests and offering segregation of duties. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.