Comparative Analysis of Present Day Clouds Using Service Level Agreements
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International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887) Volume 71– No.3, May 2013 Comparative Analysis of Present Day Clouds using Service Level Agreements Preeti Gulia, Sumedha Sood Assistant Professor Research Scholar Department of Computer science and applications Department of Computer science and applications M.D. University, Rohtak, Haryana, India M.D. University, Rohtak, Haryana, India ABSTRACT the cloud [2] .It removes the overhead of installation of Cloud computing is a novel computing paradigm in which software on client‘s personal computer. The software can be resources are delivered to end users on the basis of pay as you conveniently accessed by client by means of a thin client use model. In cloud computing a customer risks his entire interface or by means of any program interface that should be business on a cloud. Thus he needs to be fully aware and present on the client device. Here, the client has no control confident about the various services that a provider claims to over any Server or operating system or storage of cloud. The provide. The solution to the above problem comes in form of entire cloud infrastructure also remains transparent to cloud a legal contract that is established between the two. This client. However he can control user specific application contract is formally referred to as Service level agreements. configuration settings since their control may be essential for These are short documents that contain various technical use of software [3]. performance promises made by the provider. They also For example Gmail is a well known SaaS. Here, the user uses includes the penalties that provider would have to pay for the mailing software provided by Google to send and retrieve performance failures. Thus, SLA makes the provider legally mails. The user need not install it on his computer, and can liable for all his claims about various services. SLA further easily access it by a browser anywhere in world. Other well helps a cloud consumer to select the best cloud by matching known examples of software as a service are Google Apps, his requirements with what the provider specifies in its SLA. Salesforce, and Zoho Office Suite. This paper explores the concept of SLA in cloud computing by quoting examples from real world. It also compares SLA Platform as a Service (PaaS) provides an environment that of various present day clouds like rackspace, google apps, etc enables cloud client to create applications with the help of and proposes a new approach that would automatically select various tools that are provided by cloud provider .Similar to the new cloud on the basis of user requirements and SLA. SaaS, the cloud consumer in PaaS need not worry about cloud infrastructure as well as network, storage, servers and General Terms operating system .However, he is provided full control of Service level agreements of present day clouds deployed applications and configuration settings of application hosting environment. The control of above is Keywords essential for developing applications [3]. Cloud computing, service level agreement, service credit, SLA exclusions For example Google App engine is a PaaS provider that provides cloud clients to develop applications using Google 1. INTRODUCTION API .Other examples are lunacloud, Engineyard, etc Cloud computing is a new computing paradigm that provides Infrastructure As A service (IaaS) provider offers to the an easy to use, everywhere, on-demand network access to client the ability to access resources which include processing, shared computing resources such as hardware (storage, storage, network and other fundamental computing resources. servers) and software (applications) .These resources can In this model the provider is the owner of the hardware such further be rapidly supplied and released with least service as storage, servers, etc. These are then provided to consumer. provider interaction. There are three main fundamental service In contrast to the above two models, the consumer here has models according to which service is offered in cloud direct control over operating system, storage and deployed computing. These are namely Software as a Service, Platform applications. However just like in above two models, the as a Service and Infrastructure as a Service. [1] consumer does not manage cloud infrastructure. [3] Amazon Software as a service (SaaS) allows the cloud client to use EC2, Rackspace Cloud are some examples of cloud IaaS any software and associated data that is centrally hosted on providers. 1 International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887) Volume 71– No.3, May 2013 Fig. 1 Cloud Service Models Fig 2 Cloud deployment models In addition to the above given service models, cloud service level agreement templates according to user computing offers four deployment models. As the word requirement [6]. Then various efforts to automate SLA deployment indicates, deployment models define the nature of negotiation process in service deployment phase have been cloud delivery. The four Deployment models are: Private made.[7] However, still a large amount of work can be done cloud, Community cloud, Public cloud and Hybrid cloud. in this field as the service level agreements are still being Private cloud is implemented with help of a firewall and is offered as documents in the real world. build exclusively for a single organization; the community 1.1 Benefits of Service Level Agreement cloud on the other hand is designed for a community of users An unambiguous Service Level Agreement has following from organizations that have shared concerns (e.g., mission, main benefits for both cloud client and provider [8] security requirements, policy, and compliance Clear service offer considerations).Public cloud can be used by general public. On the client‘s side, SLA allows the cloud client to compare Hybrid cloud is combination of two or more distinct clouds different providers and choose the best one according to his .While Private cloud and community cloud may exist on or off requirements while on the provider‘s side, it allows the a premises, Public cloud exists on the premises of cloud provider to promote its service by stating all the service offers provider [3]. Fig 2 shows all the deployment models in it. In cloud computing the terms of service are comprised of two Clarity on legal liabilities of provider and consumer legal documents [3] It precisely defines the liability for legal compliance, 1. Service Agreement. consequential losses and penalties that the provider would pay 2. Service Level Agreement (SLA) in case of failure to meet the SLA. These are important for While a service agreement comprises all the rules that make both consumer and provider in order to be aware of risk up the legal contract between consumer and provider, the associated with the service contract. service level agreement is a comparatively shorter document Clearly identify roles and responsibilities of cloud that includes information about all the services that the provider and consumer provider promises to provide. Service Level Agreement (SLA) The service level agreement distinctly lists all the performance also contains penalties that the provider pays in case of any promises made by the provider and the conditions under SLA violation. [3] The amount of penalty varies from one which provider would not be responsible for service level provider to another and is distinctly specified in service level agreement violation. For the client, it defines the procedure by agreement. This paper focuses on service level agreement. A which he can claim for the credit and the duration in which need has been identified to automate the process of cloud he/she will be eligible to apply for claim. provider selection using service level agreements in cloud The paper is organized as follows. In section 2 the concept computing. As the number of providers is increasing, the need Service Level Agreement is briefly explained. Section 3 for the same increases even more. This is so, because it explains the contents of a service level agreement with becomes quite difficult for a cloud client to choose the best examples from real world cloud SLAs. Then, section 4 provider from large number of providers. Some research work compares the service Level Agreements offered by various the same purpose has been done before also. Efforts have been providers. In section 5 the proposed work is described and put to enable automatic selection of optimal service offerings finally paper concludes in section 6. for cloud users on the basis of user requirement [4] [5].Recently some work also has been done that adjusts public 2 International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887) Volume 71– No.3, May 2013 2. SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTS It is the responsibility of both consumer and provider to Service Level Agreements are negotiated agreements that agree to every policy, process and procedure that has identify expectations of customer, clarify responsibilities of been defined in service level agreement. provider and facilitate communication between a service It is the responsibility of provider to clearly and provider and its customer [9] unambiguously state all the services that he intends to 2.1 Service level objective provide in the service level agreement. The conditions where provider does not want to hold himself responsible One of the key elements of SLA is service level objective. for SLA violation should also be clearly listed. They act as a criterion for measuring performance of a given service. These are measurable terms that vary from one SLA It is the responsibility of provider to pay the promised to another according to application needs. In a cloud service credit to the client in case of any SLA violation (except if it is occurred due to reason mentioned in SLA application an SLO can be throughput, availability [9] [10]. exclusions) without causing any inconvenience or trouble For e.g.