Legal Issues in Grid and Cloud Computing - Grid and Cloud Computing - page 104

the Internet network) or in other circumstances stated in the SLA (usually, unavail-
ability of the service that results from any actions or inactions of the customer
or any third party, that derives from the client's and/or third party's equipment,
software or other technology, etc). Secondly, and from a different perspective, it
is important to highlight the distinction between service credits and liability for
damages. The above example is useful to explain this distinction. The SLA between
SuperICTResources and SaaSforyou sets forth, apart from the applicability of the
service credits, that the Grid/Cloud provider will not be liable for any direct or indi-
rect damage suffered by the customer and arising from the non compliance with the
promised QoS. SaaSforyou needs the provision of Grid/Cloud capacity to supply
services based on the SaaS paradigm to other companies that require a fast and effi-
cient service with few if any failures. In some cases, like for instance the provision
of Grid/Cloud-based services to hospitals, the client of the service provider may
need a completely uninterrupted provision of the service in order to save lives and
avoid expensive medical litigation.
As said above, we can imagine that SuperICTResources delivers in a certain
month the service only with an availability of 85 %, and if the fee for the service is
set at € 1,000 per month, SaaSforyou will pay the next month only € 900. The service
credit does not take into account the damages possibly suffered by the customer, like
for instance the loss of clients or the damages (if any) he has to pay to his clients 21 .
In the most dramatic scenario, contractual failures of the technology provider, espe-
cially if they are frequent, may have serious consequences on the customer's busi-
ness and this explains the absolute necessity for the client to negotiate and balance
the risks with the Grid/Cloud provider in the SLA (or other contract).
7.3.3 Security Issues: Further (potential) Liability of the Grid/Cloud
Provider
All the abovementioned elements of a typical SLA (or other contract) in a Grid or
Cloud scenario, like QoS, availability, performance, etc are undoubtedly of pivotal
importance. An unstable or unreliable Grid/Cloud provision can create severe
problems to the customer and ultimately can damage his business. Nevertheless,
if a customer is unsatisfied with a technology provider, he can terminate the
contract and start a new relationship with another supplier. At least in principle,
a client who is not happy with the supply of the Grid/Cloud service can move to
another provider before it is too late, i.e. before his reputation is badly affected and
his clients migrate to another service supplier. SaaSforyou , for example, can
terminate the contract with SuperICTResources , which is often in breach of its
obligations as regards availability and QoS, and enter into a new agreement with
another provider before SaaSforyou 's customers decide to opt for a different SaaS
supplier.
21 The SLA between SaaSforyou and the clients, in fact, can state that the former will not be
liable for any damages suffered by the customer, at least in case the failure to provide the
service is due to Grid/Cloud outages.