Contracts, SLAs and Virtual Enterprises Carlos Molina-Jimenez ( Meeting of TAPAS partners at University of Newcastle upon Tyne 5-6 th Aug 2002

Useful notation to remember E: Enterprise VE: Virtual Enterprise SLA: Service Level Agreement RO: Rights and Obligations Cli: Client Srv: Server ASP: Application Service Provider

Outline of the presentation Motivation for this presentation What is a virtual enterprise? What is a contract? Contracts in virtual enterprises What is a SLA? Relationship between SLAs and contracts? Conclusions References

Motivation for this presentation Strong relation between contracts, virtual enterprises and server level agreements. Understanding ASP, marketplaces, etc. SLA Contracts and VE

What is a virtual enterprise? -Two or more enterprises -Possibly mutual distrust -Business relationships How is a VE created? Provision of resources to each other: electronic and mechanical components. cars, ships, computers and other machinery. IT, marketing services, etc. Purpose

Efficient provision means sharing Shared resources Private resources Private resources Shared resources E1 E2 VE

Virtual enterprise: logical view Private resources Private resources E1 E2 Shared resources VE

How are disputes prevented? A mechanism to regulate interactions between participating parties is needed. A contract

What is a contract? A contract between Alice (the manager of E1) and Bob (the manager of E2) is: Obligations Alice Rights Bob Rights Obligations Bob AGREEMENT Signatures Manager E1 Manager E2

We did not invent contracts Have been around for ages. Used in different situations. However: Our interest focuses on contracts where the provision of services (resources) heavily depends on the use of computer technology. These contracts have: computational Non- computational

Computational part of contracts We conceive a contract as A script file (with readable text and executable lines) that can be enacted. o Digital signatures, o Cryptography, other computer technology. Focus on enactment monitoring renegotiation of parts. Further research original negotiation dispute resolution (in court) done remotely and automatically from the original script file.

Relevance of contracts in VEs. A contract enactment creates a VE. Obligations Alice Rights Bob Rights Obligations Bob AGREEMENT Signatures Manager E1 Manager E2 Private resources Private resources E1 E2 Shared resources VE enactment

Example of a contract “Alice has the right to retrieve a copy of doc1 from Bob’s enterprise, provided that her request is not submitted on Fri, Sat or Sun. Bob has the obligation to provide doc1 in less than 24 hs.” Rights and obligations: Rights: to request Doc1. Obligations: not to submit requests on weekends Rights: to check that request was submitted on Mon-Thu Obligations: to provide a copy of Doc1 in less than 24 hs. Alice Bob

Contract monitoring architecture check Alice’s ROs check Bob’s ROs check Alice’s ROs Alice’s E1 Bob’s E2 contract monitor request (doc1) reply (doc1) request (doc2) reply (doc2) Cli Srv Cli E-Enterprise, ROs- Rights and Obligations, Cli-Client, Srv-Server

Definition of SLA “A service level agreement defines the responsibilities of a service provider and the user of that service. It also identifies the services provided as well as the supported products, measurement criteria, reporting criteria, and quality standard of the service” [ Beckman and Oleneva,2002]. SLAs are needed where two (or more) enterprises interact: * for ex. between an ASP (Adesso) and a client. ASP (adesso) Client SLA

Accurate definition of SLA Accurate definition of SLA: agreement about some specific QoS of interest to Alice and Bob. defined as a set of named clauses about rights and obligations. RO- Rights and Obligations Alice SLA={R 1,O 1,…R m,O m, } AGREEMENT ABOUTBob For ex. R 1 - Alice has the right to request Doc1. O 1 - Alice has the obligation not to submit a request on weekends. R 2 - Bob has the right to check that the request was submitted on Mon-Thu. etc. Can name can change

Service level agreements and rights and obligations Alice and Bob interaction is defined and regulated by their Rights and Obligations (ROs). ROs can be named and grouped into SLAs: SLA 1 ={R 1,O 1,…R m1,O m1 }, SLA 2 ={R 1,O 1,…R m2,O m2 }, SLA 3 ={R 1,O 1,…R m3,O m3 }, … … …

SLAs and contracts A SLA is not a contract. A contract can be defined in terms of named SLAs : Named SLAs and RO can be: referred, edited, changed. Signatures Manager E1 Manager E2 AGREEMENT SLA 1 ={R 1,O 1,…R m1,O m1 }, SLA 2 ={R 1,O 1,…R m2,O m2 }, SLA 3 ={R 1,O 1,…R m3,O m3 }, … … …

Conclusion We need to specify the interaction between two or more enterprises not in terms of SLAs but in terms of contracts ASP (adesso) Client SLA ASP (adesso) Client enactment of the contract creates a VE

References Toward an e-contract management architecture for inter-organizational interaction in TAPAS … John Warne, 2002

Conclusions (more) No business interaction between two or more enterprises can happen without a contract. A SLA is not contract but can be part of a contract. SLAs list the ROs for a speficic QoS. A contract that precisely lists and names SLAs (and ROs) can be automatically enacted to create a VE. monitored.

Virtual enterprise: physical view Shared resources Private resources Private resources Shared resources E1 E2 VE

Definition of an electronic contract A digitally signed statement of all qualified named entities involved, detailing roles, rights, and obligations for client/server and peer/peer use of services/resources in a Virtual Enterprise (VE).

Contract monitoring architecture check Alice’s RO check Bob’s RO check Alice’s RO Alice’s E1 Bob’s E2 contract monitor request (doc1) reply (doc1) request (doc2) reply (doc2) Cli Srv Cli E-Enterprise, RO- Rights and Obligations, Cli-Client, Srv-Server