users from Canada to South America. The content of service level from the service
providers becomes an important user confidence indicator. Therefore, in order to let the
governance model meet users' needs, SLAs should be in place between the users and the
service providers that are transparent and can meet user requirements.
"
Service level" has been an abstract concept that is difficult to be measured by standards but
rather by the subjective judgments of the users. Therefore, if no agreements can be reached
by the service provider and the user, it can lead to controversies that deter the attaining of
the goals. SLA is a process of managing the planning, integration, drafting, agreements,
monitoring, and feedback. Via the measurement of the achievement rates, the objectives of
meeting users’ requirements can be assured with reasonable cost structure and with
opportunity of improvement.
Different from the traditional IT services, in a cloud environment with diverse roles and high
flexibility, the stakes for each entity need to be clarified. Since cloud services are achieved
via the Internet, it is important to maintain its integrity. With resource in mind, different
resources need to be provided to different users with feasible auditing channels. Thus, there
are more challenges toward reaching SLAs that can safeguard the reaching service goals.
The goals for cloud service level management are to manage, measure, and improve
services; to assist service providers and users to better understand the services required for
the planning and management of the services; to improve service quality to achieve the
balance of supply/demand, and user satisfaction; to enhance service quality via continuous
review; and to establish smooth multi-direction interactions.
Cloud service is a distributed computing architecture via the Internet, a service model with
flexibility and scalable capacity, with particular emphasis on the rich resource flexibility and
high availability. In order to provide convenient public services, governments on both sides
of the Strait actively introduced cloud services and initiated cloud computing applications
and industry development programs. However, the IT infrastructure and process behind
cloud services are far more complex than those of the traditional IT, thus more security
issues require attention. Therefore, when adopting cloud services, an overall risk
assessment will still need to be conducted. Especially on the government cloud that is
closely related to the public. Only after understanding all the potential risks, the clear
definition of responsibilities of the service providers and operators, as well as the various
disaster control measures, can the benefit of cloud computing be enjoyed without security
concerns.
