Cloud computing can be simply understood as a model that enables on demand and convenient access to a shared & collective pool of configurable computing resources like servers, storage, services, applications networks etc. which can be rapidly released and provisioned with service provider interaction or management effort.
Since cloud involves service provides, it becomes quite clear that there will always be partners in reference to cloud services where one would be involved in providing the clod based services to the other.
Whenever there is such relationship between two enterprises where one is providing certain services to the other in return for the financial gain then the relationship must be channelized through a standard agreement which can define the roles and responsibilities of both the parties in order to execute a smooth relationship.
Such agreements or contracts in these scenarios are known as SLA (service Level Agreements). An SLA is signed between cloud computing provider and the consumer and outlines the terms, conditions & legalities on which both the partners mutually agree.
An SLA is an imperative segment of the relationship between service provider and consumer, and is not a one-way solution. Therefore it must never be developed on a quick note because rushing the negotiation process pertaining to the terms & conditions in the SLA never gives enough time to both the parties for understanding each other’s responsibilities & expectations particularly when both the parties have a different perception of what a specific terminology stands for in the agreement.
Here comes the roles of SLA best practices which are principally used for describing the process of developing an SLA by following a standardized manner of doing the things which can be used by multiple partners. When the partners agree for a standard way of using certain terminologies while negotiating the SLAs they greatly contribute to the SLA standardization process.
The cloud standards custom council has provided a seven step process for the development of SLA and must be followed while developing the SLA, for evaluating a cloud SLA, for comparing the cloud service providers or while negotiating the terms & conditions in the SLA.
1. Identification of Cloud Actors
The first step is to accurately identify the cloud actors which can be any of these five:
- Cloud Auditor
- Cloud Broker
- Cloud Provider
- Cloud Carrier
- Cloud Consumer
Each of the above mentioned actors have unique responsibilities and roles to play. Therefore it is quite important to identify your partner in the right manner. It is also a standard that only the Cloud provider, carrier and consumer can enter into the relationship with one another through a well defines SLA that documents the terms & conditions in the standardized way.
2. Evaluation of Business Level Policies
The policies that are expressed in an SLA must be evaluated against your business policies and strategies. The business policies which must be considered for SLA inclusion should include list of services that are not covered in the agreement, guarantees, penalty & payment methods, policies pertaining to excess usage, licensed software, subcontracted services and industry specific standards.
3. Understanding IAAS, PAAS and SAAS
The third step is to accurately understand what IAAS, PAAS and SAAS are all about and on which kind of cloud would these run, There are three types of cloud – public, private and hybrid.
The terms & conditions mentioned in the SLA depend on the intricacy of all the controlled variable that the consumer will get from the cloud service provider. For example the SLA for PAAS is bit more complex as compared to the SLA for SAAS. The SAAS end user or consumer only gets control over access to the SAAS application, while the PAAS consumers or developers get complete control on the application development life cycle, but do not get any control over the virtual machines.
The SLA for IAAS is the most complex of all the three as IAAS consumers or infrastructure specialists get control over the virtual machines but not on the physical infrastructure.
4. Metrics
The fourth step is to identify that what metrics are being used for achieving performance objectives. Few examples of response time and availability metrics include constraints, metric name in the SLA, and frequency & methodology of collection.
5. Security
With an SLA you must also consider certain key security requirements to be included in the cloud SLA. Some of the imperative key security requisites include legal or regulatory requirements, asset sensitivity and cloud provider security capabilities.
Every country follows a diverse set of privacy regulations. therefore, the consumers must be aware of that in which country will their data be stored in the cloud. A country may allow certain privacy oriented data from outside the country while another country may prohibit such data.
6. Identifying service management requirements
The service management requirements include what all should be reported & monitored, and what should be metered. These also include that what should be the quickness of provisioning and how the resource change must be managed.
7. Preparing for and managing the service level failure
The last step is to get prepared for and manage the service level failures while determining what solutions should be provided and what are the limitations pertaining to the liability.
You also need to perfectly understand that how the disaster recovery plan will be executed and will work in the event of need. This plan must define how the unexpected confrontations shall be handled, what is a service outage, and what actions should be taken in the event of prolonged disruption.
Finally there must always be an exit clause through which the provider or consumer can terminate the contract as well as the mutual relationship.
These were the best practices that must be followed by any organization who wants to enter into an SLA pertaining to cloud services as the service provider or the consumer. By following these guidelines, you can develop standardized SLAs that can lead to healthy business relationships for longer terms.
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