BANGALORE, INDIA: A group of 11 companies have formed the Asia Cloud Computing Association, which will work to address regional issues and challenges in the adoption of cloud computing in Asia.

Collaboration between players is vital for creating momentum and removing the barriers to cloud computing. These include privacy and security concerns, compliance and regulation, business models, service levels, and other service issues and market risks in the region.

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Initially formed by vendors and telcos, it will need to engage a significant number of regulators and enterprises to achieve its proposed goals.

The non-profit and vendor-neutral organization has been formed to promote collaboration among cloud computing stakeholders to accelerate market growth in Asia, which is expected to evolve faster than other regions as a result of the expected stronger economic growth.

However, this growth is tempered by the region’s unique and varied regulatory, policy, regional requirements, and increased security concerns.

This growth may be accelerated by different initiatives such as standardizing nomenclature, addressing security standards, uniting on public policy, and validating regulatory positions, as well as educating the market on the benefits of the cloud, where a collective voice is more likely to succeed.

The association will need to be engaging policy makers, service providers, and especially early users of cloud computing within the region to promote, sponsor, identify and share some standard messages with the stakeholders (including regulators). This will also include sharing best practices within the region, as well as setting achievable goals that will reduce barriers to cloud adoption.

It is likely that a prioritized list of issues, starting with a few countries and focusing on a few barriers, will be more successful than having broad and general goals across too many complex issues and countries.

The organization’s founding members include a number of heavyweight global vendors and service providers, but all the leading regional cloud computing telcos are noticeably missing. Asia Cloud’s founding members are Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, EMC, Microsoft, NetApp, Nokia Siemens Networks, The Philippines’ PLDT/Smart, Rackspace, REACH, Telenor Group, and Verizon.