Web Services Differentiation with Service Level Agreements

This paper describes a framework for providing differentiated levels of Web services to different customers on the basis of service level agreements (SLAs). Service providers can offer Web services at different service levels, for example, at bronze, silver and gold levels with increasingly better response times. In general, the service levels are differentiated based on many variables such as responsiveness, availability, and performance. The framework described in this paper comprises the Web Service Level Agreement (WSLA) language to specify SLAs in a flexible and individualized way, a system to monitor the compliance of a provided service with a service level agreement, and a workload management system that prioritizes requests according to the associated SLAs. Using this framework, service providers can efficiently and flexibly manage their resources to optimize customer satisfaction and, potentially, yield.

[1]  Erwin P. Rathgeb.  Modeling and Performance Comparison of Policing Mechanisms for ATM Networks , 1991, IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun..

[2]  Aurel A. Lazar,et al.  A Separation Principle Between Scheduling and Admission Control for Broadband Switching , 1993, IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun..

[3]  Rolf Stadler,et al.  An architecture for performance management of multimedia networks , 1995, Integrated Network Management.

[4]  Asit Dan,et al.  Effect of video server topology on contingency capacity requirements , 1996, Electronic Imaging.

[5]  Donna N. Dillenberger,et al.  Adaptive Algorithms for Managing a Distributed Data Processing Workload , 1997, IBM Syst. J..

[6]  Petr Jan Horn,et al.  Autonomic Computing: IBM's Perspective on the State of Information Technology , 2001 .

[7]  Sailesh Chutani,et al.  SLA management in federated environments , 2001, Comput. Networks.

[8]  Asit Dan,et al.  eModel: addressing the need for a flexible modeling framework in autonomic computing , 2002, Proceedings. 10th IEEE International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunications Systems.

[9]  Asit Dan,et al.  A Service Level Agreement Language for Dynamic Electronic Services , 2002, Proceedings Fourth IEEE International Workshop on Advanced Issues of E-Commerce and Web-Based Information Systems (WECWIS 2002).

[10]  Joseph L. Hellerstein,et al.  Managing dynamic services: a contract based approach to a conceptual architecture , 2002, NOMS 2002. IEEE/IFIP Network Operations and Management Symposium. ' Management Solutions for the New Communications World'(Cat. No.02CH37327).

[11]  Heiko Ludwig,et al.  Defining and Monitoring Service-Level Agreements for Dynamic e-Business , 2002, LISA.

[12]  Christopher Ward,et al.  A Generic SLA Semantic Model for the Execution Management of E-business Outsourcing Contracts , 2002, EC-Web.

[13]  Asit Dan,et al.  A Service Level Agreement Language for Dynamic Electronic Services , 2003, Electron. Commer. Res..