Resource allocation strategies for the economic computational grid

Abstract

Economic scheduling needs to be considered for the grid computing environment, because it gives an incentive for resource providers to supply their resources. Moreover, it enforces the efficient use of resources, because the users have to pay for their use. Tendering is a suitable model for grid scheduling because the users start the negotiations for finding suitable resources for executing their jobs. Furthermore, the users specify their job requirements with their requests and the resources reply with bids that are based on the cost of taking on the job and the availability of their processors. In this paper, a number of entity strategies are proposed. The entities, such as users, brokers and resources, employ tender/contract-net models to negotiate the prices and deadlines. The broker's role is to act on behalf of the users. During the negotiations, the entities aim to maximise their performance, which is measured by a number of metrics.