Optimizing the configuration of web service monitors

Abstract

Service monitoring is required for meeting regulatory requirements and verifying compliance to Service Level Agreements (SLAs). As such, monitoring is an essential part of web service-based systems. However, service monitoring comes with a cost, including an impact on the quality of monitored services and systems. To deliver the best value to a service provider, it is important to balance meeting monitoring requirements and reducing monitoring impacts. We introduce a novel approach to configuring the web service monitors deployed in a system so that they provide an adequate level of monitoring but with minimized quality impacts, delivering the best value proposition in terms of monitoring benefits and costs. We use a prototype system to demonstrate that by optimizing a web service monitoring system, we can reduce the impact of a set of deployed web service monitors by up to two thirds. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.