Brussels, 13/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - In a report published on Wednesday 12 November, the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) said that governments and enterprise must take great care when choosing their information technology services provider for cloud computing so as to avoid incurring high costs if they change systems. The report, “Ensuring a thriving cloud market: Why interoperability matters for business and government?” describes the most common traps to avoid when purchasing cloud computing services and highlights strategies that should be adopted to prevent additional costs arising later. Those acquiring these kinds of services, as well as governments and enterprise, must choose systems that use common standards in an effort to avoid any interoperability problems arising if they decide to change their supplier. They should also choose cloud computing services that allow them to erase their own data and the complex formats that generate this data, without incurring excessive costs for these services. The report also formulates four other recommendations for ensuring system interoperability: 1) access to public markets for promoting the adoption of open cloud computing services; 2) promoting coordination between stakeholders at a global level; 3) introduce guarantees that ensure cloud computing service providers provide services that comply with European competition rules; 4) draw up a raft of criteria to help customers analyse provisions on data migration and data exiting, before adopting cloud computing solutions. (IL)