Cost–Benefit Analysis of an SLA Mapping Approach for Defining Standardized Cloud Computing Goods

Michael Maurera (), Vincent C. Emeakarohaa (), Ivona Brandica () and Jörn Altmann
Additional contact information
Michael Maurera: Vienna University of Technology
Vincent C. Emeakarohaa: Vienna University of Technology
Ivona Brandica: Vienna University of Technology

No 201177, TEMEP Discussion Papers from Seoul National University; Technology Management, Economics, and Policy Program (TEMEP)

Abstract: Due to the large variety in computing resources and, consequently, the large number of different types of service level agreements (SLAs), computing resource markets face the problem of a low market liquidity. Restricting the number of different resource types to a small set of standardized computing resources seems to be the appropriate solution to counteract this problem. Standardized computing resources are defined through an SLA template. An SLA template defines the structure of an SLA, the service attributes, the names of the service attributes, and the service attribute values. However, since existing research results have only introduced static SLA templates so far, the SLA templates cannot reflect changes in user needs and market structures. To address this shortcoming, we present a novel approach of adaptive SLA matching. This approach adapts SLA templates based on SLA mappings of users. It allows Cloud users to define mappings between a public SLA template, which is available in the Cloud market, and their private SLA templates, which are used for various in-house business processes of the Cloud user. Besides showing how public SLA templates are adapted to the demand of Cloud users, we also analyze the costs and benefits of this approach. Costs are incurred every time a user has to define a new SLA mapping to a public SLA template due to its adaptation. In particular, we investigate how the costs differ with respect to the public SLA template adaptation method. The simulation results show that the use of heuristics within adaptation methods allows balancing the costs and benefits of the SLA mapping approach.

Keywords: Service level agreements; Cloud architecture; Cloud markets; market liquidity; cost modeling; utility modeling; SLA matching; goods standardization. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C15 C61 C63 D40 D45 L22 L86 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2011-07, Revised 2011-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cmp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published in Elsevier, Future Generation Computer Systems Journal

Downloads: (external link)
http://temep-repec.my-groups.de/DP-77.pdf First version, 2011 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:snv:dp2009:201177

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in TEMEP Discussion Papers from Seoul National University; Technology Management, Economics, and Policy Program (TEMEP) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jorn Altmann ().