I see NIST have now published their Cloud Computing Reference Architecture as a recommendation. Little has changed conceptually since earlier drafts, but the document is now more detailed and complete.
In earlier commentary on Cloud Computing Reference Architectures, Models and Frameworks I described how there is little concensus on what form a reference "thing" should take or what its content should be, and that most are a mish mash of concepts that have their own structure, but not a consistent structure that enables them to be easily combined or compared for example. The NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture is no different in that respect.
However, it is still a worthy document, and as with earlier NIST output that laid out definitions for core cloud computing concepts such as SaaS/IaaS/PaaS, the reference architecture is bound to be widely referenced as a "standard".
