SLAs for Industrial IoT: Mind the Gap

Cloud computing and Internet of Things (IoT) are computing technologies that provide services to consumers and businesses, allowing organizations to become more agile and flexible. The potential business values that cloud consumers can achieve depend a lot on the quality of service in the provided cloud services. Therefore, ensuring the quality of service through service-level agreements (SLA) for such cloud-based services is crucial for both the service providers and service consumers. As SLA is critical for cloud deployments and wider adoption of cloud services, the management of SLA in cloud and IoT has thus become an important and essential issue. In this paper we provide an understanding of the current status and maturity level of SLA management in industrial IoT and academic efforts in this field. We also conduct a preliminary survey of current research on SLA management in order to identify open challenges and gaps that need to be addressed in future research directions. In particular, we investigate how to provide useful SLA management support adapted to the maturity level and current industrial practices, and shorten the gap between academia and industry.