Showing papers on "Service level objective published in 2011"
26 Oct 2011
TL;DR: CloudScale is a system that automates fine-grained elastic resource scaling for multi-tenant cloud computing infrastructures that can achieve significantly higher SLO conformance than other alternatives with low resource and energy cost.
Abstract: Elastic resource scaling lets cloud systems meet application service level objectives (SLOs) with minimum resource provisioning costs. In this paper, we present CloudScale, a system that automates fine-grained elastic resource scaling for multi-tenant cloud computing infrastructures. CloudScale employs online resource demand prediction and prediction error handling to achieve adaptive resource allocation without assuming any prior knowledge about the applications running inside the cloud. CloudScale can resolve scaling conflicts between applications using migration, and integrates dynamic CPU voltage/frequency scaling to achieve energy savings with minimal effect on application SLOs. We have implemented CloudScale on top of Xen and conducted extensive experiments using a set of CPU and memory intensive applications (RUBiS, Hadoop, IBM System S). The results show that CloudScale can achieve significantly higher SLO conformance than other alternatives with low resource and energy cost. CloudScale is non-intrusive and light-weight, and imposes negligible overhead (
662 citations
TL;DR: Multilevel Service Design (MSD) as discussed by the authors is a new interdisciplinary method for designing complex service systems that synthesizes contributions from new service development, interaction design, and the emerging field of service design.
Abstract: The proliferation of complex service systems raises new challenges for service design and requires new methods. Multilevel Service Design (MSD) is presented as a new interdisciplinary method for designing complex service systems. MSD synthesizes contributions from new service development, interaction design, and the emerging field of service design. MSD enables integrated development of service offerings at three hierarchical levels: (a) Designing the firm’s service concept with the customer value constellation of service offerings for the value constellation experience; (b) Designing the firm’s service system, comprising its architecture and navigation, for the service experience; and (c) Designing each service encounter with the Service Experience Blueprint for the service encounter experience. Applications of the MSD method are described for designing a new retail grocery service and for redesigning a bank service. MSD contributes an interdisciplinary service design method that accommodates the cocreat...
593 citations
14 Jun 2011
TL;DR: This work designs a MapReduce performance model and implements a novel SLO-based scheduler in Hadoop that determines job ordering and the amount of resources to allocate for meeting the job deadlines and validate the approach using a set of realistic applications.
Abstract: MapReduce and Hadoop represent an economically compelling alternative for efficient large scale data processing and advanced analytics in the enterprise. A key challenge in shared MapReduce clusters is the ability to automatically tailor and control resource allocations to different applications for achieving their performance goals. Currently, there is no job scheduler for MapReduce environments that given a job completion deadline, could allocate the appropriate amount of resources to the job so that it meets the required Service Level Objective (SLO). In this work, we propose a framework, called ARIA, to address this problem. It comprises of three inter-related components. First, for a production job that is routinely executed on a new dataset, we build a job profile that compactly summarizes critical performance characteristics of the underlying application during the map and reduce stages. Second, we design a MapReduce performance model, that for a given job (with a known profile) and its SLO (soft deadline), estimates the amount of resources required for job completion within the deadline. Finally, we implement a novel SLO-based scheduler in Hadoop that determines job ordering and the amount of resources to allocate for meeting the job deadlines.We validate our approach using a set of realistic applications. The new scheduler effectively meets the jobs' SLOs until the job demands exceed the cluster resources. The results of the extensive simulation study are validated through detailed experiments on a 66-node Hadoop cluster.
494 citations
TL;DR: In this study, firstly the concept and factors of service quality are examined, then a fuzzy AHP (analytic hierarchy process) is structured to evaluate the proposed service quality framework.
Abstract: Managers in the service sector are under pressure to demonstrate that their services are customer-focused and that continuous performance improvement is being delivered. It is essential that customer expectations are properly understood and measured under the constraints that organizations must manage. The majority of the work to date has attempted to use the SERVQUAL (service quality) methodology in an effort to measure service quality. In this study, firstly the concept and factors of service quality are examined. Then a fuzzy AHP (analytic hierarchy process) is structured to evaluate the proposed service quality framework. A case study in healthcare sector in Turkey is presented to clarify the methodology.
311 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a conceptual framework for assessing value-in-use is proposed and explored within the context of a maintenance service provider in contrast to value models in previous empirical research, the framework includes assessment not just of provider attributes but also of the customer's usage processes, as well as customer evaluations of the value in use they obtain.
284 citations
TL;DR: A lean process improvement project to increase capacity to admit new patients into a healthcare service operation system showed a 27% increase in service capacity to intake new patients and a 12% reduction in the no-show rate as a result of the transformation of service processes achieved by the lean project.
251 citations
TL;DR: The results indicate that service failure severity, interactional justice, procedural justice and perceived switching costs have a significant relationship with customer loyalty, and that interactionalJustice can mitigate the negative relationship between serviceFailure severity and customer loyalty.
238 citations
29 Nov 2011
TL;DR: This paper proposes a Web service QoS prediction framework, called WSPred, to provide time-aware personalized QoS value prediction service for different service users, which requires no additional invocation of Web services.
Abstract: The exponential growth of Web service makes building high-quality service-oriented applications an urgent and crucial research problem. User-side QoS evaluations of Web services are critical for selecting the optimal Web service from a set of functionally equivalent service candidates. Since QoS performance of Web services is highly related to the service status and network environments which are variable against time, service invocations are required at different instances during a long time interval for making accurate Web service QoS evaluation. However, invoking a huge number of Web services from user-side for quality evaluation purpose is time-consuming, resource-consuming, and sometimes even impractical (e.g., service invocations are charged by service providers). To address this critical challenge, this paper proposes a Web service QoS prediction framework, called WSPred, to provide time-aware personalized QoS value prediction service for different service users. WSPred requires no additional invocation of Web services. Based on the past Web service usage experience from different service users, WSPred builds feature models and employs these models to make personalized QoS prediction for different users. The extensive experimental results show the effectiveness and efficiency of WSPred. Moreover, we publicly release our real-world time-aware Web service QoS dataset for future research, which makes our experiments verifiable and reproducible.
237 citations
TL;DR: The results demonstrate that the customer intensity of the service is a critical driver of equilibrium price, service speed, demand, congestion in queues, and service provider revenues.
Abstract: In many services, the quality or value provided by the service increases with the time the service provider spends with the customer. However, longer service times also result in longer waits for customers. We term such services, in which the interaction between quality and speed is critical, as customer-intensive services. In a queueing framework, we parameterize the degree of customer intensity of the service. The service speed chosen by the service provider affects the quality of the service through its customer intensity. Customers queue for the service based on service quality, delay costs, and price. We study how a service provider facing such customers makes the optimal “quality--speed trade-off.” Our results demonstrate that the customer intensity of the service is a critical driver of equilibrium price, service speed, demand, congestion in queues, and service provider revenues. Customer intensity leads to outcomes very different from those of traditional models of service rate competition. For instance, as the number of competing servers increases, the price increases, and the servers become slower.
This paper was accepted by Sampath Rajagopalan, operations and supply chain management.
218 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the extent to which advocacy is a consequence of marketing relationships in service organizations and found that the forces that create strong service provider-customer relationships can provide the additional benefit of customer advocacy of the service provider.
202 citations
28 Mar 2011
TL;DR: This paper model the service provisioning problem as a Generalized Nash game, and proposes an efficient algorithm for the run time management and allocation of IaaS resources to competing SaaSs.
Abstract: Cloud computing is an emerging paradigm which allows the on-demand delivering of software, hardware, and data as services. As cloud-based services are more numerous and dynamic, the development of efficient service provisioning policies become increasingly challenging. Game theoretic approaches have shown to gain a thorough analytical understanding of the service provisioning problem.In this paper we take the perspective of Software as a Service (SaaS) providers which host their applications at an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider. Each SaaS needs to comply with quality of service requirements, specified in Service Level Agreement (SLA) contracts with the end-users, which determine the revenues and penalties on the basis of the achieved performance level. SaaS providers want to maximize their revenues from SLAs, while minimizing the cost of use of resources supplied by the IaaS provider. Moreover, SaaS providers compete and bid for the use of infrastructural resources. On the other hand, the IaaS wants to maximize the revenues obtained providing virtualized resources. In this paper we model the service provisioning problem as a Generalized Nash game, and we propose an efficient algorithm for the run time management and allocation of IaaS resources to competing SaaSs.
08 Jun 2011
TL;DR: This paper uses utility theory leveraged from economics and develops a new utility model for measuring customer satisfaction in the cloud based on the utility model, and designs a mechanism to support utility-based SLAs in order to balance the performance of applications and the cost of running them.
Abstract: The recent cloud computing paradigm represents a trend of moving business applications to platforms run by parties located in different administrative domains. A cloud platform is often highly scalable and cost-effective through its pay-as-you-go pricing model. However, being shared by a large number of users, the running of applications in the platform faces higher performance uncertainty compared to a dedicated platform. Existing Service Level Agreements (SLAs) cannot sufficiently address the performance variation issue. In this paper, we use utility theory leveraged from economics and develop a new utility model for measuring customer satisfaction in the cloud. Based on the utility model, we design a mechanism to support utility-based SLAs in order to balance the performance of applications and the cost of running them. We consider an infrastructure-as-a-service type cloud platform (e.g., Amazon EC2), where a business service provider leases virtual machine (VM) instances with spot prices from the cloud and gains revenue by serving its customers. Particularly, we investigate the interaction of service profit and customer satisfaction. In addition, we present two scheduling algorithms that can effectively bid for different types of VM instances to make tradeoffs between profit and customer satisfaction. We conduct extensive simulations based on the performance data of different types of Amazon EC2 instances and their price history. Our experimental results demonstrate that the algorithms perform well across the metrics of profit, customer satisfaction and instance utilization.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors evaluate the relationship between the service capabilities and performance of UK and Taiwanese third-party logistics providers and identify the most important services offered by 3PLs and most important aspects of 3PL operational performance.
Abstract: The aim of the research described in this paper is to evaluate the relationship between the service capabilities and performance of UK and Taiwanese third-party logistics (3PL) providers. A study is presented based on a recent survey. The results identify the most important services offered by 3PLs and the most important aspects of 3PL operational performance. The results also suggest that excellence in operations is more important than wide-ranging service provision. Furthermore, the research suggests that the range of service provision offered by 3PLs does not directly influence the 3PLs’ financial performance. However, 3PL providers with service capabilities that correspond to the key priorities of customers will gain superior financial performance through a better operational performance. Similarities and differences between logistics practices in the UK and Taiwan are highlighted.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate consumer responses to online retailer service recovery remedies following a service failure and explore whether the phenomenon of the service recovery paradox exists within the context of online retailing.
Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate consumer responses to online retailer service recovery remedies following a service failure and explores whether the phenomenon of the service recovery paradox exists within the context of online retailing.Design/methodology/approach – This paper reports on the results of two studies. Study I explores the main and interaction effects of the various dimensions of service recovery justice (i.e. distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice) on customer satisfaction, negative word‐of‐mouth (WOM), and repurchase intention based on the justice theory. Study II investigates whether the phenomenon of the service recovery paradox exists (i.e. whether customers have higher satisfaction, higher repurchase intention, and lower negative word‐of‐mouth after experiencing an effectively remedied service failure as compared to if the service failure had not occurred). A laboratory experimental design is used to test the research hypotheses.Findin...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore and empirically investigate the characteristics and contingencies of service delivery system design, and show how this contingency has implications for the extents of employee skills, employee discretion, task routineness, automation, and for front office (FO) and back office (BO) configurations.
Abstract: Purpose – The aim of this paper is to explore and empirically investigate the characteristics and contingencies of service delivery system design.Design/methodology/approach – Informed by the service strategy triad, a single embedded case study was designed to explore empirical data on four target markets, four service concepts, and on the design characteristics of the corresponding four service delivery systems. Data were collected in a market‐leading organisation in the business‐to‐business sector within the power industry. The service delivery systems comprise processes that sell electricity contracts and processes that bill against those contracts.Findings – First, the findings indicate what design characteristics are contingent upon the degree of customisation of the service concept. The authors show how this contingency has implications for the extents of employee skills, employee discretion, task routineness, automation, and for front office (FO)‐back office (BO) configurations. Second, the authors...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compared a service system design informed by service-dominant logic (SDL) with one informed by goods-dominance logic (GDL), and found that the SDL informed service system will evoke a better overall customer experience than a GDL informed service.
Abstract: Purpose – Few empirical studies have been conducted to explore the mechanisms and drivers of service exchange and value co‐creation. In particular, no study has compared a service system design informed by service‐dominant logic (SDL) with a service system design informed by goods‐dominant logic (GDL). The purpose of this paper is to address this knowledge gap. The research question is: does a service‐dominant system design result in a more favourable customer experience than a goods‐dominant service system?Design/methodology/approach – An experiment was carried out on a group of habitual bus travellers. The subjects were asked to plan a specific journey using two online journey planning systems. Two hypotheses were tested: first, an SDL informed service system will evoke a better overall customer experience than a GDL informed service system. Second, this better customer experience arises out of seven service system design characteristics. Both objective and subjective data were gathered to compare the c...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the role of a specific set of customer resources referred to as emotional intelligence (EI) in shaping customer response to service failure and found that the level of EI does predict consumer responses to service failures in terms of customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions.
Abstract: Superior customer service has always been recognized as a source of competitive advantage. But as the economic environment becomes more challenging, as switching costs become lower, and many service brands are experiencing difficulties, there is a compelling need to focus upon the quality of the customer experience in order to maintain competitive positioning. This is particularly important in those circumstances where services fail. Drawing upon the notion of the customer as a cocreator of his/her own service experience, this article examines the role of a specific set of customer resources referred to as emotional intelligence (EI) in shaping customer response to a specific set of circumstances: service failure. The results show that the level of EI does predict consumer responses to service failure in terms of customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions. Customer EI is identified as an important consideration for service managers in understanding how customers respond to service failure and service...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the effect of the relationship between service failure and service recovery on customer satisfaction and found that customer satisfaction is greater when service recovery efforts truly make up for what customers have lost and that prior experience of service failure has a significant influence on the effectiveness of those efforts.
Abstract: Service failure recoveries play an important role in the service process. Previous research on service recovery has focused on the development of classification schemes, such as service failure types (e.g., outcome- or process-related failure), service recovery attributes (e.g., psychological or tangible recovery), and failure magnitude. Few studies in the literature have developed a theory-driven model of customer satisfaction that considers whether different types of service failure warrant different types of service recovery. This article, which reports the results of two studies, draws on mental accounting theory to examine the effect of the relationship between service failure and service recovery on customer satisfaction. The results of Study 1 show that customer satisfaction is greater when service recovery efforts truly make up for what customers have lost and that prior experience of service failure has a significant influence on the effectiveness of those efforts. The results of Study 2 indicate that the magnitude of a service failure also has an impact on the effectiveness of service recovery efforts.
26 Oct 2011
TL;DR: This paper proposes a profit-oriented admission control framework, called ActiveSLA, for DaaS providers and demonstrates that it is able to make admission control decisions that are both more accurate and more profit-effective than several state-of-the-art methods.
Abstract: The system overload is a common problem in a Database-as-a-Serice (DaaS) environment because of unpredictable and bursty workloads from various clients. Due to the service delivery nature of DaaS, such system overload usually has direct economic impact on the service provider, who has to pay penalties if the system performance does not meet clients' service level agreements (SLAs). In this paper, we investigate techniques that prevent system overload by using admission control. We propose a profit-oriented admission control framework, called ActiveSLA, for DaaS providers. ActiveSLA is an end-to-end framework that consists of two components. First, a prediction module estimates the probability for a new query to finish the execution before its deadline. Second, based on the predicted probability, a decision module determines whether or not to admit the given query into the database system. The decision is made with the profit optimization objective, where the expected profit is derived from the service level agreements between a service provider and its clients. We present extensive real system experiments with standard database benchmarks, under different traffic patterns, DBMS settings, and SLAs. The results demonstrate that ActiveSLA is able to make admission control decisions that are both more accurate and more profit-effective than several state-of-the-art methods.
TL;DR: In this article, a recommended approach identifies download speed as a must-be performance dimension that interacts negatively with site functionality as the only non-linearity for online retailers, based on the observed shape of their satisfaction response functions.
TL;DR: A conceptual model including three quality measures - System Quality, Information Quality, and Service Quality is presented, which sharpens the model that these quality measures regulate Satisfaction and Trust, which lead to Continuance Intention.
Abstract: Although ASP (Application Service Provider) has the potential to fundamentally change the manner in which IT services are provided for user firms, current ASPs often fail to provide good results in accumulating and retaining customers. To fill the gap between the expected benefits of application service and its disappointing results in the real world, we present a conceptual model including three quality measures - System Quality, Information Quality, and Service Quality. To extend the horizons of ASP acceptance, this study sharpens the model that these quality measures regulate Satisfaction and Trust, which lead to Continuance Intention. We test the research model and hypotheses through the use of the data from 203 small and medium enterprises with application service experience. Data analysis results using LISREL reveal that Satisfaction and Trust have significant effects on a client firm's Continuance Intention. Trust is found to be the most salient determinant while previous studies mainly focused on the role of Satisfaction. Furthermore, an empirical support is found for the direct effect of Service Quality on Continuance Intention as well as its mediating effects.
18 Jul 2011
TL;DR: This paper presents a novel scheduling heuristic considering multiple SLA parameters for deploying applications in Clouds and discusses in details the heuristic design and implementation, and presents detailed evaluations as a proof of concept emphasizing the performance.
Abstract: Provisioning resources as a service in a scalable on-demand manner is a basic feature in Cloud computing technology. Service provisioning in Clouds is based on Service Level Agreements (SLAs) representing a contract signed between the customer and the service provider stating the terms of the agreement including non-functional requirements of the service specified as Quality of Service (QoS), obligations, and penalties in case of agreement violations. On the one hand SLA violation should be prevented to avoid costly penalties and on the other hand providers have to efficiently utilize resources to minimize cost for the service provisioning. Thus, scheduling strategies considering multiple SLA parameters and efficient allocation of resources are necessary. Recent work considers various strategies with single SLA parameters. However, those approaches are limited to simple workflows and single task applications. Scheduling and deploying service requests considering multiple SLA parameters such as amount of CPU required, network bandwidth, memory and storage are still open research challenges. In this paper, we present a novel scheduling heuristic considering multiple SLA parameters for deploying applications in Clouds. We discuss in details the heuristic design and implementation and finally present detailed evaluations as a proof of concept emphasizing the performance of our approach.
TL;DR: This paper explored the joint effects of branch service climate and the internal service provided to the branch (the service received from corporate units to support external service delivery) on customer-rated service quality.
Abstract: We lend theoretical insight to the service climate literature by exploring the joint effects of branch service climate and the internal service provided to the branch (the service received from corporate units to support external service delivery) on customer-rated service quality. We hypothesized that service climate is related to service quality most strongly when the internal service quality received is high, providing front-line employees with the capability to deliver what the service climate motivates them to do. We studied 619 employees and 1,973 customers in 36 retail branches of a bank. We aggregated employee perceptions of the internal service quality received from corporate units and the local service climate and external customer perceptions of service quality to the branch level of analysis. Findings were consistent with the hypothesis that high-quality internal service is necessary for branch service climate to yield superior external customer service quality.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify and describe important dimensions of the service process as defined by customers, and compare the results from a specific use context with the recent concept of Service Processes.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to identify and describe important dimensions of the service process as defined by customers, and to compare the results from a specific use context with the recent concept ...
01 Jan 2011
TL;DR: Findings were consistent with the hypothesis that high-quality internal service is necessary for branch service climate to yield superior external customer service quality.
Abstract: We lend theoretical insight to the service climate literature by exploring the joint effects of branch service climate and the internal service provided to the branch (the service received from corporate units to support external service delivery) on customer-rated service quality. We hypothesized that service climate is related to service quality most strongly when the internal service quality received is high, providing front-line employees with the capability to deliver what the service climate motivates them to do. We studied 619 employees and 1,973 customers in 36 retail branches of a bank. We aggregated employee perceptions of the internal service quality received from corporate units and the local service climate and external customer perceptions of service quality to the branch level of analysis. Findings were consistent with the hypothesis that high-quality internal service is necessary for branch service climate to yield superior external customer service quality.
Patent•
17 Nov 2011TL;DR: In this article, a system, method, and computer readable medium for managing registration, by a content broker, of one or more resources with one or multiple service providers is provided. But the content broker does not have the ability to manage the registration of the resources with the service provider.
Abstract: A system, method, and computer readable medium for managing registration, by a content broker, of one or more resources with one or more service providers are provided. A content broker obtains registration information for registering the one or more resources with a service provider. The registration information may include a request to publish one or more resources to a service provider, an identification of the one or more resources, service provider selection criteria provided by the content provider or otherwise selected, and the like. The content broker transmits a service provider generation request corresponding to the registration information to the service provider. Then, the content broker manages and processes data pursuant to registration of the one or more resources with the service provider.
TL;DR: This study can help online auction sellers understand buyer perceptions of service failure and recovery strategies to improve service quality, avoid negligence and make proper recovery decisions.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors employed qualitative interviews with retailers, logistics service providers and experts to consider the consumer survey findings and discuss the current market situation and suggestions for improvement regarding electronic physical distribution service quality (e-PDSQ).
Abstract: Purpose – The growth in online shopping has presented challenges for physical distribution service quality (PDSQ) provided by retailers, including both multi‐channel and pure players, and logistics service providers (LSPs). Issues emerging from a consumer survey regarding electronic physical distribution service quality (e‐PDSQ) informed this paper's research, which aims to consider this phenomenon.Design/methodology/approach – The research study employed qualitative interviews with retailers, logistics service providers and experts to consider the consumer survey findings and discuss the current market situation and suggestions for improvement.Findings – Interviewees confirmed that pure players offer better e‐PDSQ than multi‐channel retailers as well as important constructs of availability, time, condition and returns regarding this phenomenon, but also raised issues of relationships between retailers and LSPs and costs regarding service trade‐offs.Research limitations/implications – The research underta...
Posted Content•
TL;DR: A dynamic model is proposed that relies on behavioral theories and empirical evidence to capture the effect of past service experiences on service quality expectations, customer satisfaction, and retention and finds that varying service in the long run is not optimal.
Abstract: Consider a firm that can actively manage and customize the service offered to customers in a repeat business context. What is the long-term value of such flexibility, and how should firms manage the service relationship over time? We propose a dynamic model of the firm-client relationship that relies on behavioral theories and empirical evidence to model the evolution of service quality expectations and their impact on customer retention and profitability. We find that firms can extract higher long-term value by managing service experiences and expectations over time. Varying service in the long run is not optimal, however. We characterize the optimal dynamic service policy and show that it converges to a steady-state service level. Loss aversion expands the range of constant optimal service policies, suggesting that behavioral asymmetries limit the value of responsive service. Sensitivity results characterize the effect of customer margin, loyalty, and memory on policies and profits.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify both the importance and performance of restaurant service quality in the Taiwan food service industry using the SERVQUAL and IPA model and conclude with certainty that three methods (SERVQUAL, IF and IPA) are able to explain significant amount of service quality.
Abstract: As the global economy becomes a service oriented economy, food service accounts for over 20% of service revenue, with an annual growth rate of more than 3%. Compared to physical products, service features are invisible, and the production and sale occurs simultaneously. There is not easy to measure the performance of service. Therefore, the service quality of catering services is considered to be an important topic of service management. According Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC) to apply blog text analyzing to point out top 10 restaurants of blog in Taiwan, what it’s popular restaurant in food service industries. This paper attempts to identify both the importance and performance of restaurant service quality in the Taiwan food service industry using the SERVQUAL and IPA model. We can conclude with certainty that three methods (SERVQUAL, IF and IPA) are able to explain significant amount of service quality. At the same time, the service quality factors of IPA model had more comprehensive consideration in comparison to those of SERVQUAL and IF.