Abstract
The last 5 years have seen considerable discussion of various types of Grids—compute Grids, storage Grids, and data Grids. Using the checklist given in Foster (http://www-fp.mcs.anl.gov/∼foster/Articles/WhatIsTheGrid.pdf, 2002) to define a Grid, two important problems that arise in the context of resource sharing in Grid computing environments are discussed. First, the well documented problem in compute Grid environments that arises from the inability of consumers to accurately estimate their resource requirements is presented. This results in incorrect scheduling of requests for Grid resources and social welfare loss. To address this problem, two research proposals are briefly described. The first approach argues for the design of decision support tools to help users with resource estimation while the second approach studies the design of resource allocation mechanisms that can work with stochastic specifications of resource requirements. This is in contrast to the traditional point estimates of resource required by extant mechanisms. Next, resource provisioning and pricing problems that arise in data storage and retrieval Grids are described. These Grids differ fundamentally from compute Grids but share some economic characteristics with P2P file sharing networks. Drawing on this connection, pricing mechanisms and resource provisioning research is briefly discussed.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Asvanund, A., Clay, K., Krishnan, R., Smith, M.D.: An empirical analysis of network externalities in peer-to-peer music sharing networks. Inf. Syst. Res. 15, 155–174 (2004)
Bapna, R., Das, S., Garfinkel, R., Stallaert, J.: A continuous auction model for stochastic Grid resource pricing and allocation. Proceedings of the Workshop of Information Technology and Systems, 2006 (2007)
Buchanan, J.M.: An economic theory of clubs. Economica 32, 1–14 (1965)
Buyya, R.: Economic-based distributed resource management and scheduling for Grid computing PhD Thesis, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia (2002)
Buyya, R., Vazhkudai, S.: Compute power market: towards a market-oriented Grid the first IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster Computing and the Grid (CCGrid 2001) (2001)
Cohen, B.: Incentives build robustness in BitTorrent, First workshop on the economics of peer-to-peer systems. Berkeley, CA (2003)
Coase, R.: The problem of social cost. J. Law Econ. 3, 1–44 (1960)
Cornes, R.C., Sandler, T.: The Theory of Externalities, Public Goods, and Club Goods. Cambridge University Press, New York (1996)
Feldman, M., Lai, K., Zhang, L.: A price anticipating resource allocation mechanism for distributed shared clusters Proc. of the 6th ACM conference on Electronic commerce, pp. 127–136. ACM press (2005)
Foster, I.: What is the Grid?, http://www-fp.mcs.anl.gov/∼foster/Articles/WhatIsTheGrid.pdf; downloaded 5/15/05 (2002)
Golle, P., Leyton-Brown, K., Mironov, I.: Incentives for sharing in peer-to-peer networks, Proceedings of the 2001 ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce, Tampa, FL (2001)
Green, P.E., Srinivasan, V.: Conjoint analysis in marketing: new developments with implications for research and practice. J. Mark. 54(4), 3–19 (1990) Oct.
Gupta, R., Somani, A.K.: CompuP2P: An architecture for sharing of computing resources in peer-to-peer networks with selfish nodes. Second workshop on economics of peer to peer network. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (2004)
Krishnan, R., Hosanagar, K.: Challenges in designing Grid marketplaces. 3rd International Workshop on Grid Economics and Business Models, Singapore, May 2006 (invited paper)
Krishnan, R., Smith, M., Telang, R., Tang, Z.: Digital business models for peer-to-peer networks: analysis and economic issue. Review of Network Economics 6(2), 194–213 (2007)
Krishnan, R., Smith, M.D., Telang, R.: The economics of peer-to-peer networks. JITTA 531–44 (2003)
Lai, K., Huberman, B.A., Fine, L.: Tycoon: a distributed market-based resource allocation systems. Technical Report arXiv:cs.DC/0404013, April 5, 2004
Mu’alem, A.W., Feitelson, D.G.: Utilization, predictability, workloads, and user runtime estimates in scheduling the IBM SP2 with backfilling. IEEE Trans. Parallel Distrib. Syst. 12(6), 529–543 (2001) Jun
Rabin, R.: Efficient dispersal of information for security, load balancing, and fault tolerance. Journal of the ACM 36, (2), 335–348 (1989)
Stockinger, H., et al.: Defining the Grid: a snapshot on the current view. J. Supercomput. 42(1), 3–7 (2007)
Tamilmani, K., Pai, V., Mohr, A.: SWIFT: A System With Incentives For Trading, Second Workshop on Economics of Peer to Peer Network, Working Paper, Stony Brook University (2004)
Thain, D., Tannenbaum, T., Livny, M.: Distributed computing in practice: the condor experience. Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience (2004)
Varian, H.R.: Sequential provision of public goods. J. Public Econ. 53, 165–186 (1994)
Waldspurger, C.A., Hogg, T., Huberman, B.A., Kephart, J.O., Stornetta, W.S.: Spawn: a distributed computational economy. Softw. Eng. 18, (2), 103–117 (1992)
Wellman, M.P., Walsh, W.E., Wurman, P.R., MacKie-Mason, J.K.: Auction protocols for decentralized scheduling. Games Econ. Behav. 35, 271–303 (2001)
Wolski, R., Plank, J.S., Brevik, J., Bryan, T.: Analysing market-based resource allocation strategies for the computational Grid. Int. J. High Perform. Comput. Appl. 15, (3), 258–281 (2001)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Krishnan, R. Grid Economics: A Selective Discussion of Two Research Problems. J Grid Computing 6, 219–224 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10723-007-9097-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10723-007-9097-1