NIST

An ontology of identity credentials is an explicit specification of a conceptualization of identity credentials, including the actors, actions, and objects that establish the relationships of
their production, use, and destruction.

The IOF-s mission is to create a suite of ontologies intended to support digital manufacturing by facilitating cross-system integration both within the factory and across an enterprise, in commerce between suppliers, manufacturers, customers and other trading partners, and throughout the various stages of the product life cycle. The IOF Core Ontology resides at the top of this suite from an architectural perspective and contains terms found in a number of operational areas of manufacturing. These common terms appear, or are anticipated to appear, in two or more of the ontologies of the suite. Additionally, as the architectural approach chosen by the IOF is to base all of its ontologies on a single foundational or top-level ontology - for which the IOF chose the Basic Formal Ontology or BFO - the Core Ontology contains a number of intermediate-level terms that derive from BFO and from which common industry terms are in turn derived. Such intermediate-level terms are most often domain independent - meaning they are found in other industries and domains, such as in the banking, insurance, and healthcare industries, or in the sciences, as in the physics, chemistry and biology domains. The IOF Core Ontology is developed and formalized as an ontology using both first-order logic and version 2 of the Web Ontology Language (OWL). The use of logic ensures that each term is defined in a way that is unambiguous to humans and can be processed by computers. All terms appearing in the ontology are reviewed and curated by a working group and consensus is reached by validating usage in the context of manufacturing domain use cases.

The objective of the paper is to show how the OAM can be used to realize seamless integration of product information, with an emphasis on assembly, throughout all phases of a product design

This document presents the NIST Federated Cloud Reference Architecture model. This actor/role based model used the guiding principles of the NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture to develop an 11 component model which are described individually and how they function as an ensemble. There are many possible deployments and governance options which lend themselves to create a suite of federation options from simple to complex. The basics of cloud federation can be described through the interactions of the actors in a layered three planes representation of trust, security, and resource sharing and usage. A discussion on possible future standards and use cases are also described in great detail.

The acute need of the multitude of smart, end-user IoT devices and near-user edge devices to carry out, with minimal latency, a substantial amount of data processing and to collaborate in a distributed way, triggered technology advancements towards adaptive, decentralized computational paradigms that complement the centralized cloud computing model serving IoT networks.
Researchers, computer scientists, system and network engineers developed innovative solutions to fill the technological gaps. These solutions provide faster approaches that gain better situational awareness in a far more timely manner. Such solutions or computational paradigms are referred to as fog computing, mist computing, cloudlets4, or edge computing5,6. Since no consensus exists on distinction among these concepts at the time this document was created, the authors considered it imperative to provide a conceptual model that can be used by practitioners and researchers to facilitate meaningful conversations on the topic.
This document provides the conceptual model of fog computing and its subsidiary mist computing, and aims to place these concepts in relation to cloud computing7 and edge computing.
Additionally, the document introduces the notion of a fog node and the nodes federation model composed of both, distributed and centralized, often hierarhical clusters of fog nodes operating in harmony. This model is introduced as a building-block architectural approach for constructing, enhancing or expanding the fog and mist computing layers.
Furthermore, the document characterizes important aspects of fog computing and is intended to serve as a means for broad comparisons of fog computing capabilities, service models and deployment strategies, and to provide a baseline for discussion of what fog computing is and the way it may be used.
The capabilities, service types and deployment models form a simple taxonomy that is not intended to prescribe or constrain any particular method of deployment, service delivery, or business operation.

The NIST Cloud Computing Security Working group was created to achieve broad collaboration between Federal and private stakeholders in efforts to address the security-related concerns expressed by Federal managers. One of the tasks of the NIST Cloud Computing Working Group is to design a Cloud Computing Security Reference Architecture that supplements SP 500-292: NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture (RA) with a formal model and identifies the core set of Security Components recommended for building a successful and secure cloud computing Ecosystem. The document provides for an understanding of the security interdependencies of cloud services, Actors, and requirements that USG agency technical planning and implementation teams and agency procurement offices should identify and address in order to acquire cloud services with security levels that meets agency needs.
Under development
(The group seems to be dormant after 2013)

The adoption of cloud computing into the US Government (USG) and its implementation depend upon a variety of technical and non-technical factors. A fundamental reference point, based on the NIST definition of Cloud Computing, is needed to describe an overall framework that can be used government- wide. This document presents the NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture (RA) and Taxonomy (Tax) that will accurately communicate the components and offerings of cloud computing. The guiding principles used to create the RA were 1) develop a vendor-neutral architecture that is consistent with the NIST definition and 2) develop a solution that does not stifle innovation by defining a prescribed technical solution. This solution will create a level playing field for industry to discuss and compare their cloud offerings with the US Government (USG). The resulting reference architecture and taxonomy for cloud computing was developed as an Actor/Role based model that lays out the central elements of cloud computing for Federal CIOs, Procurement Officials and IT Program Managers. The cloudscape is open and diversified and the accompanying taxonomy provides a means to describe it in an unambiguous manner. The RA is presented in two parts: a complete overview of the actors and their roles and the necessary architectural components for managing and providing cloud services such as service deployment, service orchestration, cloud service management, security and privacy. The Taxonomy is presented in its own section and appendices are dedicated to terms and definitions and examples of cloud services.
The Overview of the Reference Architecture describes five major actors with their roles & responsibilities using the newly developed Cloud Computing Taxonomy. The five major participating actors are the Cloud Consumer, Cloud Provider, Cloud Broker, Cloud Auditor and Cloud Carrier. These core individuals have key roles in the realm of cloud computing. For example, a Cloud Consumer is an individual or organization that acquires and uses cloud products and services. The purveyor of products and services is the Cloud Provider. Because of the possible service offerings (Software, Platform or Infrastructure) allowed for by the cloud provider, there will be a shift in the level of responsibilities for some aspects of the scope of control, security and configuration. The Cloud Broker acts as the intermediate between consumer and provider and will help consumers through the complexity of cloud service offerings and may also create value-added cloud services as well. The Cloud Auditor provides a valuable inherent function for the government by conducting the independent performance and security monitoring of cloud services. The Cloud Carrier is the organization who has the responsibility of transferring the data akin to the power distributor for the electric grid.
The Architectural Components of the Reference Architecture describes the important aspects of service deployment and service orchestration. The overall service management of the cloud is acknowledged as an important element in the scheme of the architecture. Business Support mechanisms are in place to recognize customer management issues like contracts, accounting and pricing and are vital to cloud computing. A discussion on Provisioning and Configuration points out the requirements for cloud systems to be available as needed, metered and have proper SLA management in place. Portability and Interoperability issues for data, systems and services are crucial factors facing consumers in adopting the cloud are also undertaken here. Consumers need confidence in moving their data and services across multiple cloud environments.
As a major architectural component of the cloud, Security and Privacy concerns need to be addressed and there needs to be a level of confidence and trust in order to create an atmosphere of acceptance in the cloud‟s ability to provide a trustworthy and reliable system. Security responsibilities, security consideration for different cloud service models and deployment models are also discussed.

The NIST Cloud Computing Standards Roadmap Working Group has surveyed the existing standards landscape for interoperability, performance, portability, security, and accessibility standards/models/studies/use cases/conformity assessment programs, etc., relevant to cloud computing. Where possible, new and emerging standardization work has also been tracked and surveyed. Using this available information, current standards, standards gaps, and standardization priorities are identified within this document.

The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing identified cloud computing as a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. As an extension to the above NIST cloud computing definition, a NIST cloud computing reference architecture has been developed by the NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture and Taxonomy Working Group that depicts a generic high-level computing. It contains a set of views and descriptions that are the basis for discussing the characteristics, uses, and standards for cloud computing, and relates to a companion cloud computing taxonomy (http://www.nist.gov/customcf/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=909505). Cloud computing use cases describe the consumer requirements when using cloud computing service offerings. Through its working groups as described below, the NIST Cloud Computing program has studied a range of U.S. federal government and general-purpose use cases to extract features that are amenable to standardization. Using these examples, the current document analyzes how existing cloud-related standards fit the needs of federal cloud consumers and identifies standardization gaps. Cloud computing standards are already available in support of many of the functions and requirements. While many of these standards were developed in support of pre-cloud computing technologies, such as those designed for web services and the Internet, they also support the functions and requirements of cloud computing. Other standards have been developed or are now being developed to support specific cloud computing functions and requirements, such as virtualization, infrastructure management, service level agreements (SLAs), audits and cloud- specific data handling. Wherever possible, applicable standards are identified in this document.

To assess the state of standardization in support of cloud computing, the NIST Cloud Computing Standards Roadmap Working Group has compiled an Inventory of Standards Relevant to Cloud Computing  (http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-cloud-computing/bin/view/CloudComputing/StandardsInventory). This inventory is being maintained and updated as necessary. Using the taxonomy developed by the NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture and Taxonomy Working Group, cloud computing relevant standards have been mapped to the requirements of accessibility, interoperability, performance, portability, and security.

Cloud computing allows computer users to conveniently rent access to fully featured applications, to software development and deployment environments, and to computing infrastructure assets such as network-accessible data storage and processing. This document reprises the NIST-established definition of cloud computing, describes cloud computing benefits and open issues, presents an overview of major classes of cloud technology, and provides guidelines and recommendations on how organizations should consider the relative opportunities and risks of cloud computing. Cloud computing has been the subject of a great deal of commentary. Attempts to describe cloud computing in general terms, however, have been problematic because cloud computing is not a single kind of system, but instead spans a spectrum of underlying technologies, configuration possibilities, service models, and deployment models. This document describes cloud systems and discusses their strengths and weaknesses. Depending on an organization's requirements, different technologies and configurations are appropriate. To understand which part of the spectrum of cloud systems is most appropriate for a given need, an organization should consider how clouds can be deployed (deployment models), what kinds of services can be provided to customers (service models), the economic opportunities and risks of using cloud services (economic considerations), the technical characteristics of cloud services such as performance and reliability (operational characteristics), typical terms of service (service level agreements), and the security opportunities and risks (security).