A Cooperative Community Cloud for Small and Medium Enterprises
Haselmann Till, Vossen Gottrfied, Lipsky Stefanie, Theurl Theresia
Abstract
Cloud computing, or more generally cloud services, ought to be particularly attractive for small and mediumenterprises (SMEs). According to expert opinion, these enterprises should be able to benefit overproportionally from outsourced IT services due to a variety of reasons. As of today, however, many SMEs still refrain from adopting cloud services because they do not trust the cloud service provider sufficiently and they cannot assess the legal implications of using cloud services. In this paper, we present an argument in favor of a cooperative community cloud that applies the paradigm of a cooperative to cloud operations. We sketch our vision of a "trustworthy" cloud, argue for its viability, and identify areas for future research.