SLA negotiation is concerned with three main areas 

The actual service(s) details of the service(s) being purchased 

Problem handling: what should happen when a problem occurs  

Proof of compliance: how service performance is monitored and reported. 

2.4.3 Items contained in an SLA 

The contents of a Service Level Agreement can be broken into a number of different sections 

as follows [14]: 

General Items:

 These typically include a unique identifier (within the Service Provider s 

domain) for a particular SLA, definition of the terms used in the SLA and identification 

of the parties to the SLA. Other items will include detailed textual definition of the 

service(s) covered by the SLA and, procedures to be invoked on violation of SLA 

guarantees 

QoS Aspects:

 Clear and unambiguous definition of the service independent parameters 

for each service together with performance metrics for each individual parameter 

required for SLA compliance. 

Trouble Handling Aspects:

 Procedures to be used to report a problem to the Service 

Provider or a third party 

Monitoring and Reporting Aspects:

 Includes specification of reporting on SLA 

compliance, service performance reporting period and reporting frequency. 

Other items contained in a SLA may include accounting and discounting agreements and 

security aspects. However, in this dissertation, QoS monitoring and reporting aspects will be 

the items mostly focused on. 

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