Policy-based management of Service Level Agreements in dynamic environments

This thesis proposes a unified policy-based framework for the adaptive automation of Service Level Agreement (SLA) establishment in diverse and dynamic service provisioning environments such as the cloud. SLA establishment is the process by which, service consumers and providers, with varying and potentially conflicting requirements and capabilities, interact with one another, in order to find mutually acceptable agreements over the service usage terms and conditions prior to its provision and consumption. Adaptive automation of the interaction and decision-making process allows service entities to participate more efficiently and effectively in the quality-aware and quality-assured service provision of services.