diff --git a/src/vmm_mad/remotes/sl/sl_driver.rb b/src/vmm_mad/remotes/sl/sl_driver.rb
index f322f9609b..d8b9a8b1b8 100644
--- a/src/vmm_mad/remotes/sl/sl_driver.rb
+++ b/src/vmm_mad/remotes/sl/sl_driver.rb
@@ -187,8 +187,7 @@ class SLDriver
                 :max_count => 1})
 
         if !opts[:startCpus] or !opts[:maxMemory]
-          xml = REXML::Document.new xml_text
-          instance_type = xml.root.get_elements("//INSTANCE_TYPE")[0].text
+          instance_type = value_from_xml(sl_info,"INSTANCE_TYPE")
           cpu, mem = instance_type_capacity(instance_type)
           opts[:startCpus] = cpu / 100
           opts[:maxMemory] = mem / 1024