A WS-Agreement Based SLA Implementation for the CMAC Platform

The emerging transformation from a product oriented economy to a service oriented economy based on Cloud environments envisions new scenarios where actual QoS (Quality of Service) mechanisms need to be redesigned. In such scenarios new models to negotiate and manage Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are necessary. An SLA is a formal contract which defines acceptable service levels to be provided by the Service Provider to its customers in measurable terms. SLAs are an essential component in building Cloud systems where commitments and assurances are specified, implemented, monitored and possibly negotiable. This is meant to guarantee that consumers’ service quality expectations can be achieved. In fact, the level of customer satisfaction is crucial in Cloud environments, making SLAs one of the most important and active research topics. This paper presents an SLA implementation for negotiation, monitoring and renegotiation of agreements for Cloud services based on the CMAC (Condition Monitoring on A Cloud) platform. CMAC offers condition monitoring services in cloud computing environments to detect events on assets as well as data storage services

A bargaining-specific architecture for supporting automated service agreement negotiation systems

The provision of services is often regulated by means of agreements that must be negotiated beforehand. Automating such negotiations is appealing insofar as it overcomes one of the most often cited shortcomings of human negotiation: slowness. Our analysis of the requirements of automated negotiation systems in open environments suggests that some of them cannot be tackled in a protocol-independent manner, which motivates the need for a protocol-specific architecture. However, current state-of-the-art bargaining architectures fail to address all of these requirements together. Our key contribution is a bargaining architecture that addresses all of the requirements we have identified. The definition of the architecture includes a logical view that identifies the key architectural elements and their interactions, a process view that identifies how the architectural elements can be grouped together into processes, a development view that includes a software framework that provides a reference implementation developers can use to build their own negotiation systems, and a scenarios view by means of which the architecture is illustrated and validatedComisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología (CICYT) SETI (TIN2009-07366)Junta de Andalucía P07-TIC-2533 (Isabel)Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIN2010-21744-C02-1Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIN2007-64119Junta de Andalucía P07-TIC-02602Junta de Andalucía P08-TIC-4100Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TIN2008-04718-

A bargaining-specific architecture for supporting automated service agreement negotiation systems

The provision of services is often regulated by means of agreements that must be negotiated beforehand. Automating such negotiations is appealing insofar as it overcomes one of the most often cited shortcomings of human negotiation: slowness. Our analysis of the requirements of automated negotiation systems in open environments suggests that some of them cannot be tackled in a protocol-independent manner, which motivates the need for a protocol-specific architecture. However, current state-of-the-art bargaining architectures fail to address all of these requirements together. Our key contribution is a bargaining architecture that addresses all of the requirements we have identified. The definition of the architecture includes a logical view that identifies the key architectural elements and their interactions, a process view that identifies how the architectural elements can be grouped together into processes, a development view that includes a software framework that provides a reference implementation developers can use to build their own negotiation systems, and a scenarios view by means of which the architecture is illustrated and validatedComisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología (CICYT) SETI (TIN2009-07366)Junta de Andalucía P07-TIC-2533 (Isabel)Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIN2010-21744-C02-1Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIN2007-64119Junta de Andalucía P07-TIC-02602Junta de Andalucía P08-TIC-4100Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TIN2008-04718-

Automated and dynamic multi-level negotiation framework applied to an efficient cloud provisioning

L’approvisionnement du Cloud est le processus de déploiement et de gestion des applications sur les infrastructures publiques du Cloud. Il est de plus en plus utilisé car il permet aux fournisseurs de services métiers de se concentrer sur leurs activités sans avoir à gérer et à investir dans l’infrastructure. Il comprend deux niveaux d’interaction : (1) entre les utilisateurs finaux et les fournisseurs de services pour l’approvisionnement des applications, et (2) entre les fournisseurs de services et les fournisseurs de ressources pour l’approvisionnement des ressources virtuelles. L’environnement Cloud est devenu un marché complexe où tout fournisseur veut maximiser son profit monétaire et où les utilisateurs finaux recherchent les services les plus efficaces tout en minimisant leurs coûts. Avec la croissance de la concurrence dans le Cloud, les fournisseurs de services métiers doivent assurer un approvisionnement efficace qui maximise la satisfaction de la clientèle et optimise leurs profits.Ainsi, les fournisseurs et les utilisateurs doivent être satisfaits en dépit de leurs besoins contradictoires. La négociation est une solution prometteuse qui permet de résoudre les conflits en comblant le gap entre les capacités des fournisseurs et les besoins des utilisateurs. Intuitivement, la négociation automatique des contrats (SLA) permet d’aboutir à un compromis qui satisfait les deux parties. Cependant, pour être efficace, la négociation automatique doit considérer les propriétés de l’approvisionnement du Cloud et les complexités liées à la dynamicité (dynamicité de la disponibilité des ressources, dynamicité des prix). En fait ces critères ont un impact important sur le succès de la négociation. Les principales contributions de cette thèse répondant au défi de la négociation multi-niveau dans un contexte dynamique sont les suivantes: (1) Nous proposons un modèle de négociateur générique qui considère la nature dynamique de l’approvisionnement du Cloud et son impact potentiel sur les résultats décisionnels. Ensuite, nous construisons un cadre de négociation multicouche fondé sur ce modèle en l’instanciant entre les couches du Cloud. Le cadre comprend des agents négociateurs en communication avec les modules en relation avec la qualité et le prix du service à fournir (le planificateur, le moniteur, le prospecteur de marché). (2) Nous proposons une approche de négociation bilatérale entre les utilisateurs finaux et les fournisseurs de service basée sur une approche d’approvisionnement existante. Les stratégies de négociation sont basées sur la communication avec les modules d’approvisionnement (le planificateur et l’approvisionneur de machines virtuelles) afin d’optimiser les bénéfices du fournisseur de service et de maximiser la satisfaction du client. (3) Afin de maximiser le nombre de clients, nous proposons une approche de négociation adaptative et simultanée comme extension de la négociation bilatérale. Nous proposons d’exploiter les changements de charge de travail en termes de disponibilité et de tarification des ressources afin de renégocier simultanément avec plusieurs utilisateurs non acceptés (c’est-à-dire rejetés lors de la première session de négociation) avant la création du contrat SLA. (4) Afin de gérer toute violation possible de SLA, nous proposons une approche proactive de renégociation après l’établissement de SLA. La renégociation est lancée lors de la détection d’un événement inattendu (par exemple, une panne de ressources) pendant le processus d’approvisionnement. Les stratégies de renégociation proposées visent à minimiser la perte de profit pour le fournisseur et à assurer la continuité du service pour le consommateur. Les approches proposées sont mises en œuvre et les expériences prouvent les avantages d’ajouter la (re)négociation au processus d’approvisionnement. L’utilisation de la (re)négociation améliore le bénéfice du fournisseur, le nombre de demandes acceptées et la satisfaction du client.Cloud provisioning is the process of deployment and management of applications on public cloud infrastructures. Cloud provisioning is used increasingly because it enables business providers to focus on their business without having to manage and invest in infrastructure. Cloud provisioning includes two levels of interaction: (1) between end-users and business providers for application provisioning; and (2) between business providers and resource providers for virtual resource provisioning.The cloud market nowadays is a complex environment where business providers need to maximize their monetary profit, and where end-users look for the most efficient services with the lowest prices. With the growth of competition in the cloud, business providers must ensure efficient provisioning that maximizes customer satisfaction and optimizes the providers’ profit. So, both providers and users must be satisfied in spite of their conflicting needs. Negotiation is an appealing solution to solve conflicts and bridge the gap between providers’ capabilities and users’ requirements. Intuitively, automated Service Level Agreement (SLA) negotiation helps in reaching an agreement that satisfies both parties. However, to be efficient, automated negotiation should consider the properties of cloud provisioning mainly the two interaction levels, and complexities related to dynamicity (e.g., dynamically-changing resource availability, dynamic pricing, dynamic market factors related to offers and demands), which greatly impact the success of the negotiation. The main contributions of this thesis tackling the challenge of multi-level negotiation in a dynamic context are as follows: (1) We propose a generic negotiator model that considers the dynamic nature of cloud provisioning and its potential impact on the decision-making outcome. Then, we build a multi-layer negotiation framework built upon that model by instantiating it among Cloud layers. The framework includes negotiator agents. These agents are in communication with the provisioning modules that have an impact on the quality and the price of the service to be provisioned (e.g, the scheduler, the monitor, the market prospector). (2) We propose a bilateral negotiation approach between end-users and business providers extending an existing provisioning approach. The proposed decision-making strategies for negotiation are based on communication with the provisioning modules (the scheduler and the VM provisioner) in order to optimize the business provider’s profit and maximize customer satisfaction. (3) In order to maximize the number of clients, we propose an adaptive and concurrent negotiation approach as an extension of the bilateral negotiation. We propose to harness the workload changes in terms of resource availability and pricing in order to renegotiate simultaneously with multiple non-accepted users (i.e., rejected during the first negotiation session) before the establishment of the SLA. (4) In order to handle any potential SLA violation, we propose a proactive renegotiation approach after SLA establishment. The renegotiation is launched upon detecting an unexpected event (e.g., resource failure) during the provisioning process. The proposed renegotiation decision-making strategies aim to minimize the loss in profit for the provider and to ensure the continuity of the service for the consumer. The proposed approaches are implemented and experiments prove the benefits of adding (re)negotiation to the provisioning process. The use of (re)negotiation improves the provider’s profit, the number of accepted requests, and the client’s satisfaction

A Framework for negotiation of virtualized networks in the future Internet based on QoS classes

Orientador: Edmundo Roberto Mauro MadeiraDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de ComputaçãoResumo: Ao longo dos anos a Internet vem se tornando o principal meio de comunicação, onde muitas empresas e organizações a usam como base para os seus serviços, sendo que na maioria dos casos, estas empresas têm vários provedores de Internet (Modelo Multi- Provedor). Entretanto, a Internet atual não provê garantias de Qualidade de Serviço (Quality of Service - QoS). Para contornar esse problema, as empresas realizam um Acordo de Nível de Serviços (Service Level Agreement - SLA). Dentro desse contexto, esta dissertação de mestrado tem por objetivo desenvolver uma arquitetura para negociação de redes virtualizadas na Internet do Futuro utilizando técnicas de classificação de tráfegos para decidir, a partir dos dados coletados e das políticas de SLA, por qual ISP (Internet Service Provider) enviar os dados de acordo com a classe que os dados se enquadram. Espera-se assim atender aos requisitos de QoS de cada classe de tráfego, e diminuir os custos da empresa. Para realizar a validação da arquitetura proposta, foram efetuados experimentos baseados no protocolo OpenFlow e no emulador Mininet. Os resultados mostraram a eficiência do modelo desenvolvido, bem como a capacidade do mesmo de cumprir os objetivos definidosAbstract: Over the years the Internet has become the primary means of communication, where many companies and organizations use it as basis for their services, and in most cases, these companies have multiple Internet service providers (Multi-Provider Model). However, the current Internet does not guarantee Quality of Service (QoS), to circumvent this problem; the companies apply a Service Level Agreements (SLA). Within this context, this dissertation aims to develop architecture for traffic engineering based on traffic classification to decide, from the data collected and SLA policies, for which ISPs to send the data, according to the data class. It is expected to ensure QoS requirements of each traffic class, and reduce the costs of the company. To validate the proposed framework, experiments based on the OpenFlow protocol and on the Mininet emulator were performed. The results showed the efficiency of the framework, as well as its capacity to fulfill the desired requirementsMestradoCiência da ComputaçãoMestre em Ciência da Computaçã

Automation of The SLA Life Cycle in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has become a prominent paradigm to offer on-demand services for softwares, infrastructures and platforms. Cloud services are contracted by a service level agreement (SLA) between a cloud service provider (CSP) and a cloud service user (CSU) which contains service definitions, quality of service (QoS) parameters, guarantees and obligations. Cloud service providers mostly offer SLAs in descriptive format which is not directly consumable by a machine or a system. The SLA written in natural language may impede the utility of rapid elasticity in a cloud service. Manual management of SLAs with growing usage of cloud services can be a challenging, erroneous and tedious task especially for the CSUs acquiring multiple cloud services. The necessity of automating the complete SLA life cycle (which includes SLA description in machine readable format, negotiation, monitoring and management) becomes imminent due to complex requirements for the precise measurement of QoS parameters. Current approaches toward automating the complete SLA life cycle, lack in standardization, completeness and applicability to cloud services. Automation of different phases of the SLA life cycle (e.g. negotiation, monitoring and management) is dependent on the availability of a machine readable SLA. In this work, a structural specification for the SLAs in cloud computing (S3LACC in short) is presented which is designed specifically for cloud services, covers complete SLA life cycle and conforms with the available standards. A time efficient SLA negotiation technique is accomplished (based on the S3LACC) for concurrently negotiating with multiple CSPs. After successful negotiation process, next leading task in the SLA life cycle is to monitor the cloud services for ensuring the quality of service according to the agreed SLA. A distributed monitoring approach for the cloud SLAs is presented, in this work, which is suitable for services being used at single or multiple locations. The proposed approach reduces the number of communications of SLA violations to a monitoring coordinator by eliminating the unnecessary communications. The presented work on the complete SLA life cycle automation is evaluated and validated with the help of use cases, experiments and simulations