Languages and Templates Sample Clauses

Languages and Templates. ‌‌ One of the main challenges for contracting SLAs is the chaotic definition of the parameters and what an SLA represents. Although an SLA is defined as a formal negotiated agreement, in the real world problems are still besieging clients and Service Providers. First, since commonly recognized references are not available, Service Providers have to establish SLAs from scratch, potentially creating more workload and dramatically slowing down the development of SLAs. Second, different Service Providers contract SLAs using a variety of perplexing jargons frequently driving customers into confusion and causing misunderstanding among providers. Third, deficient contracts with missing SLA parameters are not unusual leading to reputation impairment, economic loss, or even lawsuits [27]. [27] proposed using a “SLA Foundation Template Library with reusable-component repository” providing a comprehensive set of well-defined foundation templates for developing SLAs rapidly with quality. A SLA template defines a particular grade of service which can be offered with a SLA. The functionality of the template is to capture a set of service level objectives for a service along with details of consequences for not meeting the specified objectives, and potentially any exclusion conditions. The benefits claimed from such a library is the rapid development of SLAs, an easier negotiation between Service Providers and clients, a minimization of misunderstanding and confusion about the SLA terms used, a reduction in chance of missing parameters and a better SLA integrity, and partial automation by using computer aided design technology. The paper also suggests using the Unified Modeling Language (UML) as a legible graphical representation of the suggested objected-oriented extensible and flexible templates. [34] defines a language based on XML schema for defining SLAs: “SLAng”. The advantages of using XML include the availability of tools such as “ECLIPSE” to edit and validate SLAs against the language specification and the ease of translation of SLAs into other representations using “XSLT” style sheets (e.g. more readable format). SLAng provides a format for the negotiation of QoS properties, the means to capture these properties unambiguously for inclusion in contractual agreements, and a language appropriate as input for automated reasoning systems or QoS-aware adaptive middleware. The paper argues that the main requirements of a language defining SLAs consist of: Parameterizat...