National Australia Bank is testing a security model that could become a global template for buying cloud computing services.NAB is one of 13 international steering committee members of the Open Data Centre Alliance, which was set up in 2010 to drive the development of cloud computing standards. It remains the only Australian company on the steering committee.One of the challenges with the fast growing cloud computing market is that there have been few accepted standards. While the economics of cloud computing are tempting, many organisations remain concerned it might be hard to get their data out of one cloud and into another, given the lack of standardisation.Concern about security also remains one of the biggest inhibitors to the uptake of cloud computing, according to a survey conducted in late 2011 by law firm Norton Rose.NAB and the ODCA are working out how to entrench security standards and levels of service in agreements with cloud computing providers, so that buyers of cloud computing services understand exactly what level of security they are buying.According to Adam Bennett, NAB's chief information officer, "The financial services industry is focused on ensuring secure control of data and related infrastructure at all time. To fully take advantage of cloud solutions, our security SLAs (service level agreements) must extend across all computing environments, regardless of whether [they are] using a dedicated cloud service, available via a private cloud, or a service shared with other subscribers, via a public cloud."The security provider requirements specified by ODCA provide a great step forward towards our goal for secure delivery of cloud solutions," he added. The chair of the ODCA's security work group is Matt Lowth, NAB's principal security architect.The benefit for NAB in taking such a fundamental role in the Alliance is that it can both influence the standards themselves and also develop an intimate understanding of the issues facing other organisations as they migrate to cloud computing.More than 300 companies, with a combined IT budget of more than US$100 billion, have now signed up as members of the Alliance, all seeking access to the emerging standards and templates that can be used to structure cloud computing agreements with vendors.The announcement of NAB's trial coincided with a meeting of Alliance members held in Melbourne last week. A founding member of the Alliance, NAB remains the only Australian organisation on the steering committee, which also includes international financial services' players such as China Life, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase and UBS.