Service-Level Objectives (SLO)

The Service-Level Objective (SLO) configuration specifies a target value or range of values for a service level that is measured by Service-Level Indicators (SLI).

Service-Level Objective

An SLO is defined per service.
An SLO can contain a filter that can be used to uniquely identify a deployment of a service.
An SLO defines objectives for the service that depend on the selected comparison strategy.
An SLO allows to define the total score, which have to be met in order to get a pass or warning evaluation result.

Example of Service-Level Objective (SLO):

spec_version: '1.0'
filter:
  mz_id: "4711"
  svc_id: "a14b-cd87-0d51"
comparison:
  compare_with: "single_result"
  include_result_with_score: "pass"
  aggregate_function: avg
objectives:
  - sli: response_time_p95
    pass:
      - criteria:
          - "<=+10%"
          - "<1000"
    warning:
      - criteria:
          - "<=800"
total_score:
  pass: "90%"
  warning: "75%"

Filter

This property allows a list of key-value pairs that are used to uniquely identify a deployment of a service. This means that the key of a filter can be used as a placeholder in an SLI query. For example, the filter svc_id: "a14b-cd87-0d51" specifies a unique identifier of the deployment of a service. Consequently, the key of the filter (i.e., svc_id) can be referenced in an SLI query by $svc_id.

The filters project, stage, service, and deployment can be inferred from the Keptn configuration by using $PROJECT, $STAGE, $SERVICE, and $DEPLOYMENT in SLI queries respectively. These values can also be overwritten in the configuration. The default filters are:

project
stage
service
deployment

Example of an SLO with a list of filters:

spec_version: '1.0'
filter:
  mz_id: "4711"
  svc_id: "a14b-cd87-0d51"
comparison:
...

Example of an SLI with reference to the mz_id filter from the SLO:

spec_version: "1.0"
indicators:
  throughput: "builtin:service.requestCount.total:merge(0):count?scope=tag(keptn_service:$SERVICE),mzId($mz_id)"

Comparison

By default, Keptn compares with the previous values of the SLIs. To support more advanced comparison strategies, the following properties are available:

compare_with: Defines how many previous results are considered for the comparison: single_result or several_results (single_result is the default and is used if not specified).
include_result_with_score: Controls which of the previous evaluations are included in the comparison. Therefore, this property accepts the values: pass, pass_or_warn, or all (all is the default and is used if not specified), which target the overall evaluation result and not the single SLI evaluation. In other words, the overall evaluation result decides whether SLI values are considered for the comparison or not.
number_of_comparison_results: Defines the exact number of previous results to consider (1 is the default and is used if not specified).
aggregate_function (optional): Allows overriding the default aggregation function which is avg.

Note: If you configure compare_with: "single_result" in combination with number_of_comparison_results, compare_with will negate the number_of_comparison_results.

1. Example:

comparison:
  compare_with: "single_result"
  include_result_with_score: "pass"
  aggregate_function: avg

This comparison configuration means that the current result is only compared to the last result that passed.

2. Example:

comparison:
  compare_with: "several_results"
  number_of_comparison_results: 3
  include_result_with_score: "pass_or_warn"
  aggregate_function: "avg"

This comparison configuration means that the current result is compared to the average of the three previous results that had pass or warning as a result.

Objectives

An objective consists of:

sli: Refers to the name of the SLI.
pass: Represents the upper limit up to which an evaluation is successful.
warning (optional): Describes the border where the result is not pass and not fail, and a manual approval might be needed to decide.
weight (optional): Can be used to emphasize the importance of one SLI over the others. By default, weight is 1 for all SLIs and can be overwritten. The weight is important for calculating the score later.
key_sli (optional): Can be set to true meaning that the objective is not met if this SLI fails.

Configuring the criteria:

The pass and warning criteria allow a list of boolean expressions with a logical operator [<, <=, >, >=] and a absolute or relative value. While the absolute value is a numerical number, the realtive value requires a (+/-) at the beginning and a % sign at the end, e.g.: -10%.

All boolean expressions in the list are combined with a logical AND. According to the next example, the pass criteria is met when its measured absolute value is below 1000 and the increase of the relative value is lower/equals 10 percent.

pass:
  - criteria:
    - "<1000"
    - "<=+10%"

The criteria of a pass and warning can also be splitted. This means that the two lists are combined with a logical OR. According to the next example, the pass criteria is met when either the measured absolute value is below 1000 or the increase of the relative value is lower/equals 10 percent.

pass:
  - criteria:
    - "<1000"
  - criteria:
    - "<=+10%"

Example of an Objective:

objectives:
  - sli: response_time_p95
    pass:
      - criteria:
          - "<=+10%"
          - "<1000"
    warning:
      - criteria:
          - "<=800"
    weight: 2
    key_sli: true

Scoring

An evaluation for pass counts for one point, an evaluation for warning half a point, and an evaluation for fail zero points. The default weight of an SLI is 1 and can be overwritten. The maximum score is the sum of the weights of all SLIs.

The actual evaluation result is divided by the maximum score and gives the total_score in percent. For example, the maximum score is 92 and the evaluation result is 85 - the total_score is 92.39% (85/92*100).

The pass and warning criteria for the total_score use the logical operator “>=” by default.

Add SLO configuration to a Service

Important: In the following command, the value of the resourceUri must be set to slo.yaml.

To add an SLI configuration to a service, use the keptn add-resource command:

keptn add-resource --project=sockshop --stage=staging --service=carts --resource=slo-quality-gates.yaml --resourceUri=slo.yaml