Management of service level agreements for multimedia Internet service using a utility model

The efficient management of a quality level of Internet service is becoming increasingly important to both customers and service providers. This artic le describes how service level agreements for multimedia Internet service c an be managed and controlled. We first present a literature survey on the p roblems of SLA management: SLA parameter definition, SLA measurement, and Q oS management. We present a utility model to capture the management and con trol aspects of SLAs for multimedia Internet service. This utility model ha s been used in microeconomics theory, but here we have applied it to SLA ma nagement. This model provides a computationally feasible solution for admis sion control and quality adaptation for multimedia Internet service and SLA management. It also allows management policies to be flexibly expressed by service providers. Finally, we apply the utility model to the SLA manageme nt of VoIP service and describe how to use it for admission control, dynami c quality adaptation, and resource allocation for SLA assurance.