Pyramids are available for consultants, who structure knowledge, as well as for SME`s, who make use and learn from that knowledge. A sample is illustrated in
Figure 14.
In addition to supporting the structure of information and knowledge, the ‘pyramid’ is more and more accepted as an instrument to register and protect intellectual property.
This is due to the fact that each individual, expert, association or institution structuring their knowledge in one or more of the CloudingSMEs pyramids, becomes the owner of a pyramid that can be accessed and updated only by them.
The three-sided Pyramid allows structuring Cloud related knowledge and link to external knowledge from institutions and other organisations. Each face of the three- sided pyramid is integrated with the other two. The pyramid is horizontally subdivided in levels. Each face is vertically subdivided in sectors starting from the top.
Figure 15: Snapshot of the PROMIS® toolbox
For example, EuroCloud Germany has created the Star Audit Certification pyramid (http://www.cloudingsmes.eu/en/toolbox.html) which is structured in:
Faces: focus each on one of the following: Foundation, Checklists, Star Audit Certification;
Sectors: Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service, Software-as-a-Service;
Levels: from top down represent: (a) Contract/s, (b) Security, (c) Infrastructure, (d) Operational processes, (e) Interoperability.
4.5 myCommunication
This is a tool for focused remote written communication between consultants and their SME clients. The main components are listed in the following table:
Inbox: All Messages received from Staff and system System: Messages that were generated by the system Staff: Active threads with other PROMIS® Enterprise users Archive: Closed threads and system messages are stored here Recycle Bin: All deleted threads and messages can be found here Table 3: Main Components of the myCommunication Tool
The message system, basically, works like a mail system. The user can send messages and communicate with other users of CloudingSMEs and structure messages into categories.
Figure 16: Snapshot of the myCommunication Module
4.6 myCommunication
This tool offers consultants the possibility to register their CVs in the CloudingSMEs qualifiedcommunity and letting know their competencies to companies or organizations looking for consultancy. They are qualified by an internationally agreed qualification process of recognized competences, at present, being supported by the CEN Workshop Agreement CEN CWA 16275
(https://www.promis.eu/uk/2012/01/08/article-1/).
The Qualification module offers experts and consultants the possibility of registering in the built-in database and publishing their Curricula Vitae (CVs) and competences to organisations looking for consultancy. If they have not already done so on registration, consultants can add or edit their Curriculum Vitae (CV) at any time. All data entered is optional and it is up to the consultant to decide whether and which parts of the CV can be published via the database. There are in total seven steps to completing the CV module; however the first step of accepting the Terms and Conditions is part of the initial registration process and is inactive (inaccessible) thereafter.
The Consultant CV contains detailed information about the consultant's contact details, specialist areas, industry sectors, profile, projects, professional memberships and accreditations, relevant professional activities, employment history, education and language skills.
The Consultant CV process is set out in a series of seven steps.
Step 1: (Completed at registration – PROMIS® Information page with conditions and explanations).
Step 2: Personal data and general information. Step 3: Professional profile.
Step 5: Education and personal attributes. Step 6: Summary.
Step 7: Save and Submit for evaluation.
To better safeguard Data Protection, CloudingSMEs offers specific buttons in Step 6 where each expert can decide which information can be published and which not.
4.7 Multilingualism
4.7.1 Overview
In CloudingSMEs Multilingualism is relevant; it is well know that the traditional SMEs are the most difficult to be reached in matters of ICT and Cloud because many of them speak only their mother tongue and do not understand English well.
CloudingSMEs aims at addressing the SMEs in their mother tongue and offering, as far as possible, interactive services which allow them to interact, collaborate and work with people in other languages but always speaking their mother tongue. Note however that the PROMIS® toolbox is not a machine translation. Rather the PROMIS® technology allows to link with existing machine translations. After marking the text which is implemented in the tools described above, the SME user can translate the selected text into another language.
In the scope of CloudingSMEs, the integration of the machine translation has been made possible, through the results achieved in the European funded project PROMISLingua2 (www.promislingua.eu) where two partners of CloudingSMEs have participated playing crucial roles:
UEAPME, as partner responsible for dissemination and rollout of the PROMIS® platform among European associations and their SME members;
PROMIS@Service, as partner responsible for Technical management, Exploitation and Rollout coordination.
Multilingualism in CloudingSMEs will be performed and made possible in two ways: (i) via Human Translation and (ii) via Machine Translation.
4.7.2 Human Translation
Human translation is particularly needed for all content where
precision is key and very clear understanding of a text is required ‘at a glance’.
2
PROMISLingua - PeRformance Operational and Multilingual Interactive Services to support Compliance for SMEs in Europe
For example: texts in the website, contracts, SLAs, security content, the variables of the tools which will be developed during the course of the project (e.g. TCO, ROI), press releases, brochures, poster and other type of texts which will be needed to perform the dissemination in each country, with the specific aim to attract numerous SMEs in CloudingSMEs.
The translation of the a.m. texts has to be done by each partner in their own language since, even if it will be partially be performed with the machine translation, the texts will require human action and control to ensure high quality.
The consortium plans to have 5 languages (English, German. Italian, Greek, French) thus attracting the increasing interest of the SMEs towards the CloudingSMEs platform. To this end, an initial technical infrastructure that could enable multi-lingual versions of the tools (based on human translation) has been developed. The approach followed involves the isolation of language dependent texts/prompts in appropriate resource files that could be given to human translators. A proof-of- concept validation of the approach has been already carried out in the German language and using the Cloud Security Scorecard as a test case. The approach will be extended to the rest languages and tools as part of the subsequent release of the deliverable.
4.7.3 Machine Translation in CloudingSMEs
In CloudingSMEs Machine Translation is made possible for texts which are implemented in the pyramids, questionnaires and communication.
Translation in CloudingSMEs can only function if the platform is connected with a specific machine translation (e.g. in PROMISLingua the MT of Linguatec was trained specifically for the Health&Safety domain). Machine translations are normally trained in one or more topics, but in most of the cases the quality is still not perfect.
At present it is seldom the case that a machine translation covers the domain of Cloud Computing simply because this is a new field and terminology/corpora are produced incrementally with the development and the maturity of the domain.
Using the machine translation, the consortium will have to validate the correctness and quality assures the content translated with MT.
The idea to negotiate the use of the MT from the Commission is important because it is the best trained for European matters. An additional reason for linking with the MT of the Commission is to build up a win-win collaboration which means:
The Commission allows the CloudingSMEs project to use their MT for free;
CloudingSME consortium delivers the Cloud terminology/corpora in the different languages supporting the training of the MT of the Commission;
The European SMEs will take advantage of the input (corpora/ terminology) in training the MT of the Commission through high quality translation and content.
To this end, UEAPME as coordinator in the name of the consortium, EuroCloud, as well as PROMIS@Service signed a letter of committment that all terminology coming into CloudingSMEs will be given to the Commission to train their machine translation. This is in full interest of the CloudingSMEs project, the consortium and the SMEs, since quality is here of crucial importance.
4.7.4 Implementation Status
The PROMIS® toolbox exists as described above. Tailoring and integration work will be done, according to the CloudingSMEs Description-of-Work (DoW).
4.8 Document Library
In addition to the tools of the PROMIS® platform, the toolbox is complemented by a document library (accessible via the CloudingSMEs portal), where several documents will be placed in order to serve as reference sources for SMEs wishing to access more detailed information or documentation. As a first step the library is structured around the main areas of support for CloudingSMEs (i.e. contractual issues and SLAs, privacy and data protection issues, cost/financial issues, as well as cloud security issues).
5
Conclusions
As a support action the CloudingSMEs project is committed to supporting SMEs in their cloud-related decision. To this end, the project is developing and promoting a support infrastructure, which will provide SMEs with insights on thorny issues associated with cloud adoption (targeted to end-user SMEs), as well as information of interest to SMEs developing and rolling out novel cloud products and services. The CloudingSMEs toolbox is an essential element of this support infrastructure. Instead of constraining the toolbox to a set of documents, the partners have opted for providing a range of more interactive web based tools, which will be integrated within the CloudingSMEs website.
This deliverable has reported on the first version (release) of the CloudingSMEs toolbox, which includes several tools that address different issues/aspects of cloud deployment. The tools include: (a) The “Cloud Security Scorecard” tool, which should allow SMEs to audit/score the level of security offered by their cloud providers, (b) The “Privacy and Data Protection Guide” tool, which provides information to SMEs about data protection issues in the cloud, including pointers to applicable legislation, (c) The “Guide to an effective SLA” tool, which should support SMEs in effectively understanding and negotiating their SLAs with cloud providers, (d) The “TCO Calculator” tool, which facilitates SMEs in calculating the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of their cloud solutions, but also in comparing this TCO with a data center solutions, (e) The “Strategic Considerations Scorecard”, which provides the means to assess whether the SMEs should adopt a cloud solution or not, (f) The “Cloud Solutions Catalogue” tool, which is a searchable catalogue of cloud solutions, including the purpose/functionality of its solution, the target groups, the target industry, as well as the region(s)/countries where these services are offered and (g) The “Cloud Standards Catalogue” tool, which is a searchable catalogue of cloud standards and their purpose/usefulness for SMEs. An initial prototype of all these tools has been also provided or is in progress. Furthermore, some of the tools are already accessible via the CloudingSMEs portal.
In addition to presenting the above-listed tools, the deliverable has also illustrated several capabilities of the PROMIS® platform, which will be exploited towards providing additional support tools to SMEs, as part of the project’s toolbox. These include several tools for providing training and consulting services. Furthermore, the CloudingSMEs toolbox will include a library of documents which will be selected by the consortium partners and made available to the CloudingSMEs community.
Our future plans for improving the toolbox will be centered to fine-tuning the tools based on feedback and recommendation received by SMEs. Moreover, the project will endeavor to attempt the customization of the tools towards certain SMEs profiles, which will be based on reception and analysis of profile data from the registered SMEs to the CloudingSMEs portal and community.
References
[CSCC12] Cloud Standards Customer Council (2012), “Practical Guide to Cloud Service Level Agreements”, available at: www.cloud-council.org
[Hon12] W. Kuan Hon, Christopher Millard and Ian Walden, “Negotiating Cloud Contracts- Looking at Clouds from Both Sides Now”, STANFORD TECHNOLOGY LAW REVIEW, VOLUME 16, NUMBER 1 FALL 2012.
[Rackspace13] Rackspace, cloud cost calculator, http://www.rackspace.com/calculator/
[Wood09] T. Wood, A. Gerber, K. Ramakrishnan, J. Van der Merwe, and P. Shenoy. The case for enterprise ready virtual private clouds. In Proceedings of the Usenix Workshop on Hot Topicsin Cloud Computing (HotCloud), San Diego, CA, June 2009.