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Leveraging global wisdom will be significant to the success of Hong Kong Cloud Standards Alliance (HKCSA), noted technology experts and academics at last week's inauguration ceremony of HKCSA.

With a mission to develop cloud computing standards that enhance the collaboration and integration with different cloud initiatives and with China's cloud computing projects, HKCSA is urged to "think global."

"There are a lot of previous experiences and global wisdom that HKCSA could leverage," said Helen Meng from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, also one of the academic advisers of HKCSA. "I was involved at W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) and during the process we learned that it is important to involve as many parties involve as possible in order to develop a set of comprehensive standards." Meng is associate dean (research) of the faculty of engineering at the Chinese University.

She added when W3C started developing standards in voice-recognition technology, it focused only on the Latin-based languages. But it was the involvement from other Asia organizations that raised the concern of multi-lingual support. Thus W3C developed the Internationalization working group, which aims to liaise and foster understanding across different languages and cultures. 

Meng noted HKCSA can also leverage and integrate with other cloud standards developed by other technology bodies, like the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the US.

In addition to the technology bodies, HKCSA is also encouraged to leverage the lessons learned in the development of electricity and its standards.

"In the last century, electricity significantly changed the lifestyle and the way we work, I believe cloud computing will generate a similar impact to mankind in the coming century," said CK Wong (pictured, far left) from Hong Kong Computer Society (HKCS), one of the founding members of HKCSA.

"Why we are willing to use electricity, even we know it could be dangerous? That's because we have developed safety standards and provided a reliable network for the usage and provision of electricity," he added.

HKCS' Wong noted the major contribution of electricity to mankind is not the electric current itself, but the utilization of it from different machines and devices. With well-developed applications and standards, cloud computing could also bring significant contributions to mankind as electricity. 

"Similar to the development of electricity, cloud computing also encounters the challenges of standards," he added. "The differences in power voltage in different countries remain an issue until recent years."

Wong added standards in cloud are extended beyond technology, but involve also business and legal issues.

"There is no single standard for cloud computing," he said. "The 'cloud standards' should comprise self-regulatory rules for the industry to follow, technology standards, rules for conducting cloud pilot testing, and take into concern the potential laws and regulations."