Service Quality Model Evaluation

Abstract

In this chapter, we present the current state-of-the-art technology and methodologies regarding the evaluation of the provided quality of service in service oriented environments. With the emergence of service provisioning infrastructures and the adoption of Service Level Agreements acting as electronic contracts between service providers and customers, the need to control and validate the offered quality has appeared throughout the service lifecycle. This monitoring is performed either in the client side, using the customer’s Quality of Experience and employing trust and reputation mechanisms for the service selection and evaluation phase, or in the provider side, dynamically reconfiguring the service and allocating resources accordingly, in order to optimize the quality metrics guaranteed. The latter, of course, initially requires mapping of the high-level quality parameters, which are closer to the customer perception, to low-level computing terms related to the resource management process. Dynamic resource allocation based on quality monitoring and evaluation can lead to optimizing resource utilization and provider’s profits.