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Success of Cloud computing requires that both customers and providers can be confident that signed Service Level Agreements (SLA) are supporting their respective business activities to their best extent. Currently used SLAs fail in providing such confidence, especially when providers outsource resources to other providers. These resource providers typically support very simple metrics, or metrics that hinder an efficient exploitation of their resources. In this paper, we propose a resource-level metric for specifying fine-grain guarantees on CPU performance. This metric allows resource providers to allocate dynamically their resources among the running services depending on their demand. This is accomplished by incorporating the customer΄s CPU usage in the metric definition, but avoiding fake SLA violations when the customer΄s task does not use all its allocated resources. As demonstrated in our evaluation, which has been conducted in a virtualized provider where we have implemented the needed infrastructure for using our metric, our solution presents fewer SLA violations than other CPU-related metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a framework to administrate privacy policies in distributed service infrastructure. We define new administrative capabilities that model user preferences and specify how data owners can access to them. We investigate a distributed administration of the privacy policy where three different administrative policies can coexist and one can dominate the other. We define the data collector practices, the legal organisation policies, such as emergency service΄s policies, and the negotiated policy between the data collector and services providers. We finally specify how to manage these three distributed privacy administration policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid development and critical convergence of Information Communication Technologies is radically impacting education, particularly in second language acquisition, where the sudden availability of multimedia content and immediacy of distance communication offer specific advantage. The language classroom is evolving to integrate computer-mediated learning and communication with traditional schooling; digitization and the Internet mean the textbook is evolving from inert hard copy that is consumed, to dynamic e-texts that students participate in. The emergence of English as a Global Language, with the primary role of English on the Internet, means that the transition from fixed hard copy to fluid online digital environment is particularly evident in EFL/ESL. I review research, trace ways in which this transition occurs, and speculate on how, under the impact of ICTs and their convergence, the EFL/ESL textbook will reform, and may even disappear as a stand-alone entity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EFL/ESL departments periodically face the problem of textbook selection. Cogent issues are that non-native speakers will use L2 English mainly to communicate with other non-native English speakers, so an American accent is becoming less important. L2 English will mainly be used in computer-mediated communication, hence the importance of L2 Digital Literacy. The convergence of Information Communication Technologies is radically impacting Second Language Acquisition, which is integrating web-hosted Assessment and Learning Management Systems. EFL/ESL textbooks need to be compatible with blended learning, prepare students for a globalized world, and foster autonomous learning. I summarize five papers on EFL/ESL textbook evaluation and selection, and include relevant material for adaptation. Textbooks are major sources of contact with the target language, so selection is an important decision. Educators need to be systematic and objective in their approach, adopting a selection process that is open, transparent, accountable, participatory, informed and rigorous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online applications such as games and e-learning applications fall within the broader category of real-time online interactive applications (ROIA), a new class of `killer΄ application for the Grid that is being investigated in the edutain@grid project. The two case studies in edutain@grid are an online game and an e-learning training application. We present a novel Grid-based business framework that makes use of bipartite service level agreements (SLAs) and dynamic invoice models to model complex business relationships in a massively scalable and flexible way. We support cross-organization load management at the business level, through zone migration. For evaluation we look at existing and extended value chains, the quality of service (QoS) metrics measured and the dynamic invoice models that support this work. We examine the causal links from customer quality of experience (QoE) and service provider quality of business (QoBiz) through to measured quality of service. Finally we discuss a shared reward business ecosystem and suggest how extended service level agreements and invoice models can support this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Service-level agreements (SLA) definition and monitoring are open issues within the IT Service Management (ITSM) domain. Our main goals are to propose a model-based approach to IT services SLA specification and compliance verification. The specification will be accomplished by proposing a SLA language - a domain specific language for defining quality attributes as non functional requirements (NFRs) in the context of ITSM. This will allow that SLA monitoring and compliance validation at a level of abstraction that is understood by the stakeholders involved in the service specification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are used in Service- Oriented Computing to define the obligations of the parties involved in a transaction. SLAs define these obligations, including for instance the expected service levels to be delivered by the provider, and the payment expected from the client. The obligations of the parties must be made explicit prior to the transaction, and a mechanism should be available to control the interaction, in order to ensure that the obligations are met. We outline a norm-oriented multiagent system (NoMAS) architecture that is combined with the service-oriented architecture in order to support the definition, management, and control of SLAs between the service clients and service providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multipath bandwidth provisioning is one of the prime interest of next generation optical networks. It is a policy to distribute the requested bandwidth in multiple link disjoint paths on the basis of some optimization function. It also helps to increase network throughput. By using backup path provisioning, we can meet availability requirement of service level agreement (SLA). But multipath bandwidth provisioning leads to problem like jitter which is the difference of delay between two paths. In this paper, we propose a dynamic multipath bandwidth provisioning scheme in telecom mesh network which takes both throughput and jitter into account. It also meets SLA requirement of incoming requests. Our provisioning scheme is dynamic in the sense that it allocates bandwidth for service requests that arrive periodically with no knowledge of future requests and hence requiring an online algorithm. Our algorithm uses 1:N protection scheme against restoration since only protection can guarantee connection availability which is very important to meet SLA. Simulation studies show that efficient multipath bandwidth provisioning using our proposed algorithm can result in total network throughput to be 70% to 90% as well as keeping the effect of jitter that is buffer space overhead to a substantial of 8% to 10% of total load. We will show the simulation result with mean down time 400 second/year and 500 second/year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The commercial availability of computational resources enable consumers to scale their applications on-demand. However, it is necessary for both consumers and providers of computational resources to express their technical and economic preferences using common language protocols. Ultimately, this requires clear, flexible and pragmatic communication protocols and policies for the expression of bids and resulting generation of service level agreements (SLAs). Further standardization efforts in such description languages will foster the specification of common interfaces and matching rules for establishing SLAs. Grid middleware are not compatible with market-orientated resource provisioning. We aim to reduce this gap by defining extensions to a standardized specification such as JSDL. Furthermore, we present a methodology for matchmaking consumer bids and provider offers and map the additional economic attributes into a SLA. We demonstrate the usage of the message protocols in an application scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Service Level Agreements in Grid and Cloud scenarios can be a source of disputes particularly in case of breach of the obligations arising under them. It is then important to determine where parties can litigate in relation with such agreements. The paper deals with this question in the peculiar context of the European Union, and so taking into consideration Regulation 44/2001. According to the rules on jurisdiction provided by the Regulation, two general distinctions are drawn in order to determine which (European) courts are competent to adjudicate disputes arising out of a Service Level Agreement. The former is between B2B and B2C transactions, and the latter regards contracts which provide a jurisdiction clause and contracts which do not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe the business-oriented architectural principles of the EC FP7 project ˵BREIN″ for service-based computing. The architecture is founded on principles of how real businesses interact to mutual benefit, and we show how these can be applied to SOA and Grid computing. We present building blocks that can be composed in many ways to produce different value systems and supply chains for the provision of computing services over the Internet. We also introduce the complementary BREIN VO concept, which is centric to, and managed by, a main contractor who bears the responsibility for the whole VO. The BREIN VO has an execution lifecycle for the creation and operation of the VO, and we have related this to an application-focused workflow involving steps that provide real end-user value. We show how this can be applied to an engineering simulation application and how the workflow can be adapted should the need arise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common approach to the process of reaching agreements is the publication of templates that guide parties to create agreement offers that are then sent for approval to the template publisher. In such scenario, a common issue the template publisher must address is to check whether the agreement offer received is compliant or not with the template. Furthermore, in the latter case, an automated explanation of the reasons of such non-compliance is very appealing. Unfortunately, although there are proposals that deal with checking the compliance, the problem of providing an automated explanation to the non-compliance has not yet been studied in this context. In this paper, we take a subset of the WS-Agreement recommendation as a starting point and we provide a rigorous definition of the explanation for the non-compliance between templates and agreement offers. Furthermore, we propose the use of constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) solvers to implement it and provide a proof-of-concept implementation. The advantage of using CSPs is that it allows expressive service level objectives inside SLAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federated computing environments offer requestors the ability to dynamically invoke services offered by collaborating providers in the virtual service network. Without an efficient resource management that includes Dynamic SLA Negotiation, however, the assignment of providers to customer΄s requests cannot be optimized and cannot offer high reliability without relevant SLA guarantees. We propose a new SLA-based SERViceable Metacomputing Environment (SERVME) capable of matching providers based on QoS requirements and performing autonomic provisioning and deprovisioning of services according to dynamic requestor needs. This paper presents the SLA negotiation process that includes on-demand provisioning and uses an object-oriented SLA model for large-scale service-oriented systems supported by SERVME. An initial reference implementation in the SORCER environment is also described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are used in Service-Oriented Computing to define the obligations of the parties involved in a transaction. SLAs define the service users΄ Quality of Service (QoS) requirements that the service provider should satisfy. Requirements defined once may not be satisfiable when the context of the web services changes (e.g., when requirements or resource availability changes). Changes in the context can make SLAs obsolete, making SLA revision necessary. We propose a method to autonomously monitor the services΄ context, and adapt SLAs to avoid obsolescence thereof. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The enablement of the Grid paradigm for commercial solutions is a fundamental issue for both research bodies and companies. Different technologies seem to be mature to serve the purpose, but still research and experimentation is needed. In fact, the introduction of the business aspect poses new challenges such as new business models, service composition, relationships management, etc. In this paper, we present the S-Sicilia project, a 2-year collaboration between Oracle and the COMETA consortium, aiming to setup a Grid-based business infrastructure to provide business services with guaranteed QoS for companies. The system does not aim to provide answers for all business related issues, but rather be a kind of benchmark where experimentation on real cases takes place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grid systems are on the verge of attracting the commercial user who requires contractually fixed levels of service quality. Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are powerful instruments for describing all obligations and expectations within such a Grid-based business relationship. Service selection has so far been based on performance and compatibility criteria while neglecting the factor of reliability and risk. The EC-funded project ˵AssessGrid″ aims at introducing risk assessment and management as a novel decision paradigm into Grid computing. With AssessGrid, providers are able to express the risk associated with an SLA, and broker services are able to judge the trustworthiness of such provider risk statements. This paper focuses on the provider ranking process where a broker or end-user has to decide which provider to choose from, and consequently which SLA to commit to. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy management is becoming a priority in the design and operation of complex service-based information systems, as the energy costs of IT infrastructures increase. This paper aims at introducing a novel interdisciplinary approach for the development of advanced active energy-aware business process applications, based on expertise from several research areas: Web service technologies, data deduplication, optimization, performance evaluation, model identification, robust and predictive control. The basic idea is that enforcing energy efficiency goals for the development of green business process systems can only be achieved by recognizing their multi-layer feedback nature, which can be successfully exploited by combining IT methodologies with methods and tools from systems and control theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]