Quality of Service Contract Specification, Establishment, and Monitoring for Service Level Management

By: Changzhou Wang, Haiqin Wang, Alice Chen, Rodolfo Santiago

Abstract

This paper describes a Quality of Service (QoS) management approach and architecture as well as a case study for Service Level Management (SLM). Our approach brings in a new perspective to the SLM probem by using QoS management and QoS Contract specification, establishment, and monitoring. In SLM, the service consumer side and the service provider side must share a common understanding of QoS characteristics and use a common language for specifying desired QoS parameters in the form of QoS contracts. A service consumer must negotiate with the service provider to establish mutually agreed QoS contracts for an interaction session. When establising a new QoS contract, the service provider must consider both QoS contracts already agreed upon with existing consumers and system resource conditions. Similarly, a service consumer must be prepared in revising its contract with the service provider as conditions change over time. Once a QoS contract is established, SLM must monitor QoS status to make sure that the service quality is provided at the agreed range. If necessary, SLM must activate adaptation mechanisms to bring the service quality to the desired level. A case study is presented in this paper to validate the QoS contract management design approach and architecture for SLM.

Cite as:

Changzhou Wang, Haiqin Wang, Alice Chen, Rodolfo Santiago, “Quality of Service Contract Specification, Establishment, and Monitoring for Service Level Management”, Journal of Object Technology, Volume 6, no. 11 (December 2007), pp. 25-44, doi:10.5381/jot.2007.6.11.a2.