Analyzing Market-Based Resource Allocation Strategies for the Computational Grid

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