Special Publication 800-145 The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing Recommendations of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Peter Mell Timothy Grance NIST Special Publication 800-145 The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing Peter Mell Timothy Grance C O M P U T E R S E C U R I T Y Computer Security Division Information Technology Laboratory National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg MD 20899-8930 September 2011 U S Department of Commerce Rebecca M Blank Acting Secretary National Institute of Standards and Technology Patrick D Gallagher Under Secretary for Standards and Technology and Director Reports on Computer Systems Technology The Information Technology Laboratory ITL at the National Institute of Standards and Technology NIST promotes the U S economy and public welfare by providing technical leadership for the nation’s measurement and standards infrastructure ITL develops tests test methods reference data proof of concept implementations and technical analysis to advance the development and productive use of information technology ITL’s responsibilities include the development of technical physical administrative and management standards and guidelines for the cost-effective security and privacy of sensitive unclassified information in Federal computer systems This Special Publication 800-series reports on ITL’s research guidance and outreach efforts in computer security and its collaborative activities with industry government and academic organizations National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 800-145 7 pages September 2011 Certain commercial entities equipment or materials may be identified in this document in order to describe an experimental procedure or concept adequately Such identification is not intended to imply recommendation or endorsement by the National Institute of Standards and Technology nor is it intended to imply that the entities materials or equipment are necessarily the best available for the purpose ii Acknowledgements The authors Peter Mell and Timothy Grance of the National Institute of Standards and Technology NIST would like to thank the many experts in industry and government who contributed their thoughts to the creation and review of this definition We especially acknowledge Murugiah Souppaya and Lee Badger also of NIST and Wayne Jansen of Booz Allen Hamilton whose advice and technical insight assisted this effort Errata The following changes have been incorporated into Special Publication 800-145 as of the date indicated in the table DATE 4 27 2012 TYPE Editorial CHANGE Corrected page number from “2” to “1” iii PAGE NUMBER 1 1 Introduction 1 1 Authority The National Institute of Standards and Technology NIST developed this document in furtherance of its statutory responsibilities under the Federal Information Security Management Act FISMA of 2002 Public Law 107-347 NIST is responsible for developing standards and guidelines including minimum requirements for providing adequate information security for all agency operations and assets but such standards and guidelines shall not apply to national security systems This guideline is consistent with the requirements of the Office of Management and Budget OMB Circular A-130 Section 8b 3 “Securing Agency Information Systems ” as analyzed in A-130 Appendix IV Analysis of Key Sections Supplemental information is provided in A-130 Appendix III This guideline has been prepared for use by Federal agencies It may be used by nongovernmental organizations on a voluntary basis and is not subject to copyright though attribution is desired Nothing in this document should be taken to contradict standards and guidelines made mandatory and binding on Federal agencies by the Secretary of Commerce under statutory authority nor should these guidelines be interpreted as altering or superseding the existing authorities of the Secretary of Commerce Director of the OMB or any other Federal official 1 2 Purpose and Scope Cloud computing is an evolving paradigm The NIST definition characterizes important aspects of cloud computing and is intended to serve as a means for broad comparisons of cloud services and deployment strategies and to provide a baseline for discussion from what is cloud computing to how to best use cloud computing The service and deployment models defined form a simple taxonomy that is not intended to prescribe or constrain any particular method of deployment service delivery or business operation 1 3 Audience The intended audience of this document is system planners program managers technologists and others adopting cloud computing as consumers or providers of cloud services 1 2 The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous convenient on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources e g networks servers storage applications and services that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction This cloud model is composed of five essential characteristics three service models and four deployment models Essential Characteristics On-demand self-service A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities such as server time and network storage as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with each service provider Broad network access Capabilities are available over the network and accessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms e g mobile phones tablets laptops and workstations Resource pooling The provider’s computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand There is a sense of location independence in that the customer generally has no control or knowledge over the exact location of the provided resources but may be able to specify location at a higher level of abstraction e g country state or datacenter Examples of resources include storage processing memory and network bandwidth Rapid elasticity Capabilities can be elastically provisioned and released in some cases automatically to scale rapidly outward and inward commensurate with demand To the consumer the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can be appropriated in any quantity at any time Measured service Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability1 at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service e g storage processing bandwidth and active user accounts Resource usage can be monitored controlled and reported providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of the utilized service Service Models Software as a Service SaaS The capability provided to the consumer is to use the provider’s applications running on a cloud infrastructure 2 The applications are accessible from various client devices through either a thin client interface such as a web browser e g web-based email or a program interface The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network servers operating systems storage or even individual application capabilities with the possible exception of limited userspecific application configuration settings Platform as a Service PaaS The capability provided to the consumer is to deploy onto the cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquired applications created using programming 1 2 Typically this is done on a pay-per-use or charge-per-use basis A cloud infrastructure is the collection of hardware and software that enables the five essential characteristics of cloud computing The cloud infrastructure can be viewed as containing both a physical layer and an abstraction layer The physical layer consists of the hardware resources that are necessary to support the cloud services being provided and typically includes server storage and network components The abstraction layer consists of the software deployed across the physical layer which manifests the essential cloud characteristics Conceptually the abstraction layer sits above the physical layer 2 languages libraries services and tools supported by the provider 3 The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network servers operating systems or storage but has control over the deployed applications and possibly configuration settings for the application-hosting environment Infrastructure as a Service IaaS The capability provided to the consumer is to provision processing storage networks and other fundamental computing resources where the consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary software which can include operating systems and applications The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems storage and deployed applications and possibly limited control of select networking components e g host firewalls Deployment Models Private cloud The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for exclusive use by a single organization comprising multiple consumers e g business units It may be owned managed and operated by the organization a third party or some combination of them and it may exist on or off premises Community cloud The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for exclusive use by a specific community of consumers from organizations that have shared concerns e g mission security requirements policy and compliance considerations It may be owned managed and operated by one or more of the organizations in the community a third party or some combination of them and it may exist on or off premises Public cloud The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for open use by the general public It may be owned managed and operated by a business academic or government organization or some combination of them It exists on the premises of the cloud provider Hybrid cloud The cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more distinct cloud infrastructures private community or public that remain unique entities but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability e g cloud bursting for load balancing between clouds 3 This capability does not necessarily preclude the use of compatible programming languages libraries services and tools from other sources 3