The SLA management system mechanism represents a range of commercially available cloud management products that provide features pertaining to the administration, collection, storage, reporting, and runtime notification of SLA data.

An SLA management system deployment will generally include a repository used to store and retrieve collected SLA data based on pre-defined metrics and reporting parameters. It will further rely on one or more SLA monitor mechanisms to collect the SLA data that can then be made available in near-realtime to usage and administration portals to provide ongoing feedback regarding active cloud services (Figure 1). The metrics monitored for individual cloud services are aligned with the SLA guarantees in corresponding cloud provisioning contracts.

Figure 1 – A cloud service consumer interacts with a cloud service (1). An SLA monitor intercepts the exchanged messages, evaluates the interaction, and collects relevant runtime data in relation to quality-of-service guarantees defined in the cloud service’s SLA (2A). The data collected is stored in a repository (2B) that is part of the SLA management system (3). Queries can be issued and reports can be generated for an external cloud resource administrator via a usage and administration portal (4) or for an internal cloud resource administrator via the SLA management system’s native user-interface (5).

Related Patterns:

• Centralized Remote Administration
• Dynamic Failure Detection and Recovery
• Non-Disruptive Service Relocation
• Realtime Resource Availability
• Usage Monitoring
• Volatile Configuration

This mechanism is covered in CCP Module 4: Fundamental Cloud Architecture.

For more information regarding the Cloud Certified Professional (CCP) curriculum, visit www.arcitura.com/ccp.

This cloud computing mechanism is covered in:

Cloud Computing: Concepts, Technology & Architecture by Thomas Erl, Zaigham Mahmood,
Ricardo Puttini

(ISBN: 9780133387520, Hardcover, 260+ Illustrations, 528 pages)

For more information about this book, visit www.arcitura.com/books.