Challenges in SLA Translation

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) represents an architectural shift for building business applications based on loosely coupled services. In a multi-layered SOA environment the exact conditions under which services are to be delivered can be formally specified by Service Level Agreements (SLAs). However, typical SLAs are just specified at the top-level and do not allow service providers to manage their IT stack accordingly as they have no insight on how top-level SLAs translate to metrics or parameters at the various layers of the IT stack. This article addresses the research problems in the area of SLA translation, namely, the correlation and mapping of SLA-related metrics and parameters within and across IT layers. We introduce a conceptual framework for precise definition and classification of SLA translations in SOA. Furthermore, we discuss the fundamental research challenges to be addressed for turning the vision of holistic and transparent SLA translation into reality.