How Do Cloud Contracts Reflect “Shared Responsibility”? — Illustrations: Cloud Computing and Cloud Marketplace Toolkit Project

Information technology (“IT”) operates in layers: infrastructure (hardware) on which operating systems and computing platforms are installed and application software designed to run on the underlying operating system.[1] Those layers are often referred to as the technology stack. IT systems also communicate with other IT systems, which may be internal or external to an organization, and they store and process data in various forms (information or content). Security is a consideration for every layer, every communication channel, every access point, and every body of data. This concept is often referred to as defense in depth.
IT systems today combine layers from third parties, like cloud-based infrastructure providers, with platf