1.3 Objectives 

The primary objective of this dissertation is to develop a framework that can support QoS 

monitoring and Service Level Agreements for Web delivered Services. This has three 

sections to it. 

To design a client side proxy that supports automatic configuration, monitoring and 

logging of availability and performance parameters as perceived by the end user of 

Web delivered services  

The design of a SLA template specifically for Web delivered services that will map 

these parameters captured by the proxy in a meaningful way so that it is possible to 

specify how a service delivered over HTTP should perform, from the end user 

perspective 

To implement SLA verification and feedback to the Service Provider and Customer 

so as to notify them of SLA compliance. 

1.4 Technical Approach  

The completion of the dissertation was undertaken with the following approach. 

Initially the area of Quality of Service was examined including QoS in the context of 

network, applications and service management including composite QoS management 

Next, the area of Service Level Agreements and the components of a SLA and technologies 

used to describe SLAs are investigated. The HTTP protocol and it's use as a service delivery 

mechanism is looked at including what the issues are in using it and the problems it presents 

for monitoring performance and availability from the end user perspective. Next the 

requirements for monitoring service performance and availability from and end user 

perspective are addressed including what parameters can be monitored and where they can 

be captured. A framework was then designed that can describe these requirements and 

monitor them using a client side proxy to capture the appropriate information. Finally a 

sample application is built that demonstrates the usefulness of the framework.