Risk Management Framework to Avoid SLA Violation in Cloud from a Provider’s Perspective

Abstract

Managing risk is an important issue for a service provider to avoid SLA violation in any business. The elastic nature of cloud allows consumers to use a number of resources depending on their business needs. Therefore, it is crucial for service providers; particularly SMEs to first form viable SLAs and then manage them. When a provider and a consumer execute an agreed SLA, the next step is monitoring and, if a violation is predicted, appropriate action should be taken to manage that risk. In this paper we propose a Risk Management Framework to avoid SLA violation (RMF-SLA) that assists cloud service providers to manage the risk of service violation. Our framework uses a Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) and considers inputs such as the reliability of a consumer; the attitude towards risk of the provider; and the predicted trajectory of consumer behavior to calculate the amount of risk and the appropriate action to manage it. The framework will help small-to-medium sized service providers manage the risk of service violation in an optimal way.