Question

Hello everyone, I need to Research a Cloud Computing Service Level Agreement to describe what it entails. Please point me to one that includes any of these components:

Availability and performance requirements

Service monitoring and reporting

Remediation and liability (or lack thereof) for service disruption

Dispute resolution procedures a

A mechanism for reviewing and updating the SLA, including a change control process

Answer 1

A Service Level Agreement is the bond for performance negotiated between the cloud services provider and the client. Earlier, in cloud computing all Service Level Agreements were negotiated between a client and the service consumer. Nowadays, with the initiation of large utility-like cloud computing providers, most Service Level Agreements are standardized until a client becomes a large consumer of cloud services. Service level agreements are also defined at different levels such as:

Customer-based Service Level Agreement , Service-based Service Level Agreement , Multilevel Service Level Agreement

Few Service Level Agreements are enforceable as contracts, but mostly are agreements or contracts which are more along the lines of an Operating Level Agreement (OLA) and may not have the restriction of law. It is fine to have an attorney review the documents before making a major agreement to the cloud service provider. Service Level Agreements usually specify some parameters like:

1. Availability of the Service (uptime)
2. Latency or the response time
3. Service components reliability
4. Each party accountability
5. Warranties

In any case, if a cloud service provider fails to meet the stated targets of minimums then the provider has to pay the penalty to the cloud service consumer as per the agreement. So, Service Level Agreements are like insurance policies in which the corporation has to pay as per the agreements if any casualty occurs.
Microsoft publishes the Service Level Agreements linked with the Windows Azure Platform components, which is demonstrative of industry practice for cloud service vendors. Each individual component has its own Service Level Agreements. Below are two major Service Level Agreements (SLA) described:

Windows Azure SLA –
Window Azure has different SLA’s for compute and storage. For compute, there is a guarantee that when a client deploys two or more role instances in separate fault and upgrade domains, client’s internet facing roles will have external connectivity minimum 99.95% of the time. Moreover, all of the role instances of the client are monitored and there is guarantee of detection 99.9% of the time when a role instance’s process is not runs and initiates properly.

SQL Azure SLA –
SQL Azure clients will have connectivity between the database and internet gateway of SQL Azure. SQL Azure will handle a “Monthly Availability” of 99.9% within a month. Monthly Availability Proportion for a particular tenant database is the ratio of the time the database was available to customers to the total time in a month. Time is measured in some intervals of minutes in a 30-day monthly cycle. Availability is always remunerated for a complete month. A portion of time is marked as unavailable if the customer’s attempts to connect to a database are denied by the SQL Azure gateway.

Service Level Agreements are based on the usage model. Frequently, cloud providers charge their pay-as-per-use resources at a premium and deploy standards Service Level Agreements only for that purpose. Clients can also subscribe at different levels that guarantees access to a particular amount of purchased resources. The Service Level Agreements (SLAs) attached to a subscription many times offer various terms and conditions. If client requires access to a particular level of resources, then the client need to subscribe to a service. A usage model may not deliver that level of access under peak load condition.