A System Dynamics Approach to Web Service Capacity Management

摘要

This paper presents a dynamic simulation modelapplied within the field of web services capacity management.The main purpose of the model is to help manage the webservices capacity that providers assign their customersaccordingly so as to ensure the fulfillment of the Service LevelAgreements (SLAs) established.Therefore, the model allows forthe analysis of the effects of different web services capacitymanagement polices on the service performance and on thepenalties to be assumed by providers for non-compliance withthe response times agreed with their customers. The main aimsof the sensitivity analysis carried out in the case study of thisresearch paper are as follows: (1) to assess the fulfillment ofthe SLAs according to the web service capacity contracted bythe customer, (2) to determine the lowest web service capacityand those capacity management parameters that ensure thatthe actual service performance is the one that has been agreedon (3) to evaluate the penalties that the web service providershould assume for non-compliance with response times.