A Survey and Evaluation of the Existing Tools that Support Adoption of Cloud Computing and Selection of Trustworthy and Transparent Cloud Providers

In spite of the benefits that could flow from its adoption, cloud computing brings new challenges associated with potential lack of transparency, trust, and loss of controls. With a growing number of cloud service providers, potential customers will require methods for selecting trustworthy and appropriate providers. We discuss existing tools, methods and frameworks that promote the adoption of cloud computing models, and the selection of trustworthy cloud service providers. We propose a set of customer's assurance requirements as a basis for comparative evaluation, and is applied to several popular tools (CSA STAR, CloudTrust Protocol, C.A.RE and Cloud Provider Transparency Scorecard). We describe a questionnaire-based survey in which respondents evaluate the extent to which these tools have been used, and assess their usefulness. The majority of respondents agreed on the importance of using the tools to assist migration to the cloud and, although most respondents have not used the tools, those who have used them reported them helpful. It has been noticed that there might be a relationship between a tool's compliance to the proposed requirements and the popularity of using these tools, and these results should encourage cloud providers to address customers' assurance requirements.