A Blockchain-based approach for Service Level Agreement Management in Cellular Network

Abstract

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) serve as the cornerstone of collaboration and service delivery between providers and customers, delineating the quality of services that the provider commits to deliver through various terms and conditions. However, the complexity, manual and centralized communication processes and the potential for action denial pose challenges to the current SLA management. Moreover, while the traditional SLA process may accommodate current negotiation and contract volumes, scaling becomes problematic with increasing numbers of providers, service types, and consumers. Blockchain technology offers inherent features such as high automation and scalability, transparency, trust, immutability, and non-repudiation, which are particularly beneficial in the context of SLA management. This paper proposes a Blockchainbased solution for managing SLA Lifecycle using smart contracts and Oracles. We primarily focus on three main phases of this lifecycle: SLA Negotiation, SLA Violation monitoring, and SLA Compensation through automatic cryptocurrency-based compensation or adjustments of SLA rules based on predefined policies established during the initial phase (service credits). This approach streamlines the SLA agreement and compensation processes while offering scalability, trust, transparency, and nonrepudiation. Assessments in the specific use-case of cellular networks confirm the scalability of this solution.