Grid Commerce, Market-Driven G-Negotiation, and Grid Resource Management

Although the management of resources is essential

for realizing a computational grid, providing an efficient resource

allocation mechanism is a complex undertaking. Since Grid

providers and consumers may be independent bodies, negotiation

among them is necessary. The contribution of this paper

is showing that market-driven agents (MDAs) are appropriate

tools for Grid resource negotiation.MDAs are e-negotiation agents

designed with the flexibility of: 1) making adjustable amounts of

concession taking into account market rivalry, outside options,

and time preferences and 2) relaxing bargaining terms in the

face of intense pressure. A heterogeneous testbed consisting of

several types of e-negotiation agents to simulate a Grid computing

environment was developed. It compares the performance

of MDAs against other e-negotiation agents (e.g., Kasbah) in a

Grid-commerce environment. Empirical results show that MDAs

generally achieve: 1) higher budget efficiencies in many market

situations than other e-negotiation agents in the testbed and

2) higher success rates in acquiring Grid resources under high

Grid loadings.