Analyzing Market-based Resource Allocation Strategies for the Computational Grid

Rich Wolski, James S. Plank, John Brevik and Todd Bryan.

Technical Report UT-CS-00-453, University of Tennessee, December, 2000.

Gzipped postscript available from http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~rich/publications/CS-00-453.ps.gz.

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate G-commerce -- computational economies for controlling resource allocation in Computational Grid settings. We define hypothetical resource consumers (representing users and Grid-aware applications) and resource producers (representing resource owners who ``sell'' their resources to the Grid). We then measure the efficiency of resource allocation under two different market conditions: commodities markets and auctions. We compare both market strategies in terms of price stability, market equilibrium, consumer efficiency, and producer efficiency. Our results indicate that commodities markets are a better choice for controlling Grid resources than previously defined auction strategies.