SLA Contract for Cross-layer Adaptation and Monitoring

This paper discusses a framework for contract-based monitoring and adaptation with respect to customers’ goals seen as an important part of Service Level Agreement (SLA) contracts. Within standard SLA contracts concepts, as mutual agreements between service providers and users, we introduce Key Goal Indicators (KGIs). These are parameters that state how well service-based processes achieve the customers’ goals. The SLA contract includes parameters of KPI, KGI and IT infrastructure type. Possible violations of each type is checked in the monitoring phase and an action is taken to adapt the violated condition through an adaptation mechanism. We describe the phases of a methodology for creating, monitoring, and adapting an SLA contract, in particular, leveraging on aspects of Quality of Service (QoS) violations.