AN ARCHITECTURAL MODEL FOR SLA NEGOTIATION BETWEEN SAAS AND CUSTOMERS

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a cloud computing model where consumers use Cloud applications without controlling the hardware, operating system and network devices of the environment providing the application. In order to enlarge their customer base, SaaS providers need to attract customers with special requirements and for this a novel negotiation framework was proposed to establish service level agreements (SLAs) with these special QoS requirements. This paper presents an architectural model for SLA negotiation between SaaS and Customers and describes as SaaS providers want to enlarge market share, they need to provide more flexibility in terms of services to cater to variations associated with an individual customer. This is generally done by a negotiation process between customers and service providers. However, while undertaking this negotiation process, the service provider needs to take into consideration not only what they can provide to customers but also the competition with other SaaS providers. Thus, the new negotiation frameworks proposed are needed for the SaaS provider that considers dynamism in Cloud environment with time and market factors to make the best possible decisions for negotiation. The proposed negotiation framework can be used for the SaaS provider and the SaaS broker model Keywords— Cloud Computing, Software as a Service (SaaS), Service Level Agreement (SLA), Negotiation.