A broker-based framework for integrated SLA-aware SaaS Provisioning
This addresses the issue of service quality for SaaS consumers by integrating previously separate processes, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing broker and utility-based methods.
The authors tackled the problem of disjoint service selection, SLA negotiation, and compliance monitoring in SaaS provisioning by proposing an integrated broker-based framework, resulting in a utility-driven selection algorithm and a bargaining decision model demonstrated through a use-case.
In the service landscape, the issues of service selection, negotiation of Service Level Agreements (SLA), and SLA-compliance monitoring have typically been used in separate and disparate ways, which affect the quality of the services that consumers obtain from their providers. In this work, we propose a broker-based framework to deal with these concerns in an integrated manner for Software as a Service (SaaS) provisioning. The SaaS Broker selects a suitable SaaS provider on behalf of the service consumer by using a utility-driven selection algorithm that ranks the QoS offerings of potential SaaS providers. Then, it negotiates the SLA terms with that provider based on the quality requirements of the service consumer. The monitoring infrastructure observes SLA-compliance during service delivery by using measurements obtained from third-party monitoring services. We also define a utility-based bargaining decision model that allows the service consumer to express her sensitivity for each of the negotiated quality attributes and to evaluate the SaaS provider offer in each round of negotiation. A use-case with few quality attributes and their respective utility functions illustrates the approach.