Record Management in the Cloud: Service Quality and Service Level Agreement

Abstract

Recently, many companies or organizations are introducing cloud services for managing digital records. Cloud services can dramatically reduce the cost of archiving and managing digital records, and provide a foundation for resilient management of digital records, depending on the business environment. Many companies and organizations outsource management of digital records to the cloud. Generally, companies sign SLA contracts when outsourcing computing systems to the cloud. This means that they will pay for the usage of the service while expecting cloud service more or less quantitative level. Customers who request cloud record management services want to be assured that their records are kept in trust in the cloud while meeting records requirements. The cloud record management service provider wants to know which quality items or criteria associated with records should be used to manage records. To establish a cloud record management service SLA, customers and service providers must be aware of each other’s interrelationships, make a clear statement of their requirements and expectations, and agree on them. Because cloud services pay for service usage and satisfaction, the SLA must be defined for the purpose so that the customer and service provider can provide services that are mutually satisfactory. This paper describes the requirements for ensuring the quality of cloud record management services and the quality items and classification schemes and key indicators and values required for establishing SLAs.