Cloud SLAs

Swapnil KulkarniVice-Chair, WG 3.1 Cloud SLAs

Senior Software Engineer at Red Hat

@coolsvap

Agenda

✔ Cloud Service Level Agreements (SLAs)✔ Metrics & SLOs✔ Evaluating Service Level Agreements✔ ISO/IEC 19086

How do I choose a Cloud Service Provider

Service-related concerns:● Performance● Price● Reputation

Cloud Service Level Agreements

A cloud SLA is a documented agreement between the cloud service provider (CSP) and cloud service customer that identifies services and associated quality levels (i.e., cloud service level objectives or SLOs).

Cloud Consumer

Cloud Service Provider

Metrics

Service Capabilities

Requirements

Monitoring SLA Agreement

What are Metrics?

Measurand Quantity (property) intended to be measured

Measurement Set of operations having the object of determining a Measurement Result

Metric A standard of measurement that defines the conditions and the rules for performing the measurement and for understanding the results of a measurement

Why Metrics?

✔ Compare service capabilities✔ Agree on provided service✔ Measure and Verify

Metrics tie the three together

Service Level Objective (SLOs) Example

Cloud Service Response Time Component● The response time is the time a cloud-deployed workload

takes to react to an input or a set of inter-dependent inputs (i.e. a transaction). It is normally measured in seconds or milliseconds.

Service Level Objects● Cloud Service Response Time Observation● Cloud Service Response Time Mean● Cloud Service Response Time Variance● Cloud Service Response Time over Threshold● Delay Duration Time

Cloud Service Agreements: Current Landscape

Cloud Service Agreements is comprised of three major artifacts: Customer Agreement Acceptable Use Policy Service Level Agreement

Customers must pay close attention to CSA language and clauses Mismatch between expectations and service terms common

Service level guarantees for IaaS better defined than SaaS or PaaS Service levels more flexible and negotiable for private cloud than public

cloud Size matters

Larger customers have more power to negotiate favorable terms Over time, changes imposed by larger customers will trickle down to

all customers

10 Steps to Evaluate Cloud Service Agreements

1.Understand roles and responsibilities2.Evaluate business level policies3.Understand service and deployment model differences4.Identify critical performance objectives5.Evaluate security and privacy requirements6.Identify service management requirements7.Prepare for service failure management8.Understand the disaster recovery plan9.Define an effective governance process10.Understand the exit process

ISO/IEC 19086 Cloud Computing SLA Framework

“This international standard specifies: an overview of SLAs for cloud services, identification of the relationship between the master service agreement and the SLA, SLA components that can be used within a framework to build SLAs, and terms and METRICS commonly used in SLAs for cloud services. This standard is for the benefit and use for both provider and customer.“

ISO/IEC 19086 DRAFT INCLUDES

➢ OVERVIEW OF SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTS (SLAS) FOR CLOUD SERVICES

➢ RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MASTER AGREEMENT AND SLAS

➢ SLA COMPONENTS THAT CAN BE USED WITHIN A FRAMEWORK TO BUILD SLAS

➢ SLOS THAT HELP QUANTIFY THE SLA COMPONENTS

19086: Cloud Service SLAs

✔ Decide - ‐ customer lays out requirements for cloud service ✔ Agree - ‐ Service Agreement & SLA connect customer &

provider ✔ Measure - ‐ show what is provided meets SLA objectives

19086: Cloud Service SLAs

4 parts in 19086 Common Terminology - ‐ SLA has clear meaning to

customer & provider Metrics - ‐ precise descrip'ons of how SLA objectives are

measured and reported Requirements - ‐ describe what elements should be in

SLAs Security – SLA terms relating to Security & Privacy

Certifications???

Summary: Are we there yet?

✔ Standards (vocabularies, metrics, ...), and best practices (making Cloud SLAs usable for SMEs).

✔ ISO/IEC 19086 Parts 1-4✔ Certifications or SLA’s or both?

Questions