This week, we issued NARA Bulletin 2010-05: Guidance on Managing Records in Cloud Computing Environments. Back in February, we issued a preliminary FAQ about Cloud Computing and this Bulletin builds upon some of the issues that we addressed in the FAQ.
The Bulletin contains an expanded definition of Cloud Computing technology, deployment models, and service models. We quote directly from the National Institute of Standards and Technology definition, version 15, that is available here. In addition, the guidance development team interviewed several Federal agencies that are adopting various forms of cloud computing to see if they have started to address records management in their cloud deployments. The results of these interviews helped us identify and validate the challenges for records management posed by cloud computing and how we believe that agencies can start to address them.
Finally, the Bulletin includes a general contracting clause that Federal agencies may find useful when they are procuring cloud computing solutions and negotiating contracts with service providers. This clause can modified to fit the planned type of service and specific agency records management needs. We have also passed this guidance clause directly to GSA and hope that they will incorporate it in the model agreement (link to .pdf) that has emerged as agencies negotiate with service providers.