Michael Reinicke

Decentralized resource allocation in application layer networks

Application-layer networks (ALN) are software architectures that allow the provisioning of services requiring a huge amount of resources by connecting large numbers of individual computers. The ALN simulation project CATNET evaluates a decentralized mechanism for resource allocation in ALN, which is based on the economic paradigm of the Catallaxy, against a centralized mechanism using an arbitrator object. In both versions, software agents buy and sell network services and resources to and from each other. The economic model is based on self-interested maximization of utility and self-interested cooperation between agents. This article describes the design of money and message flows for centralized and decentralized coordination in both versions and shows preliminary results.

Decentralized vs. centralized economic coordination of resource allocation in grids

Application layer networks are software architectures that allow the provisioning of services requiring a huge amount of resources by connecting large numbers of individual computers, like in Grid or Peer-to-Peer computing. Controlling the resource allocation in those networks is nearly impossible using a centralized arbitrator. The network simulation project CATNET will evaluate a decentralized mechanism for resource allocation, which is based on the economic paradigm of the Catallaxy, against a centralized mechanism using an arbitrator object. In both versions, software agents buy and sell network services and resources to and from each other. The economic model is based on self-interested maximization of utility and self-interested cooperation between agents. This article describes the setup of money and message flows both for centralized and decentralized coordination in comparison.

CatNet: Catallactic Mechanisms for Service Control and Resource Allocation in Large-Scale Application-Layer Networks

The aim of the CatNet project is to combine economic and computer science research to provide new coordination mechanisms for large-scale application-layer net-works. The ability of a free-market economy to balance and satisfy the convicting needs of millions of human agents recommends it as a decentralized organizational principle. CatNet will evaluate a decentralized mechanism for resource allocation in computer networks, which is based on the economic paradigm of the Catallaxy. The technical realization of the paradigm builds on software agents which buy and sell network services and resources. This concept is applied both to initial service deployment and service access and to provisioning during the networks lifecycle.

Exploring the Catallactic Coordination Approach for Peer-to-Peer Systems *

Efficient discovery and resource allocation is one of the challenges of current Peer-to-Peer systems. In centralized approaches, the user requests can be matched to the fastest, cheapest or most available resource. This approach, however, shows scalability limits. In this paper, we explore the catallactic coordination as a decentralized economic approach for resource allocation in peer-to-peer networks. The economic model of the catallaxy is based on the self-interested maximization of utility and the negotiation of prices between agents. We evaluate the feasibility of our approach by means of simulations and compare the proposed system with a centralized baseline approach. Our results indicate that while in the catallacic approach the number of control messages exchanged between the peers grows due to the negotiation process, its service provision rate is fairly constant in different dynamic environments.

Decentralized management of persistent bandwidth provision for mobile devices in cellular radio networks

WLAN, GSM and UMTS are the most acquainted radio networks for digital telephony and data transfer and for this reason (business) applications arise rapidly. In contrast to wire networks (e.g. Ethernet), radio networks have strict restraints: because of their physical characteristics radio networks implicate a permanent contest about bandwidth; a static access point is sharing one frequency together with all mobile user devices connected. Thus a competition for the bandwidth naturally arises as the bottleneck bandwidth is available to all participants and cannot be extended unlimited in a fixed number of usable channels. The paper introduces an economic approach that balances the scarce quantity of bandwidth in a market system with the help of an internal payment system. This coordination of bandwidth can be implemented both by a central point - like a stock market instance - or decentralized within the radio network cells. Research results, comparing central coordination to a decentralized organized subject to different network topologies and -parameters have shown that networks underlying high dynamic appearance of peers outperform the centralized mechanism by far. Furthermore, it is shown, that for the dispersion of bandwidth and the choice of the access point, market mechanisms can be mapped to radio networks and efficient allocations can be reached in comparison to previous techniques and central coordination.

Ökonomische Bewertung der Dienstauswahl in Service-Netzen

Einfache IT-Dienstleistungen werden im Konzept des On-Demand bzw. Grid Computing an externe Anbieter ausgelagert. Dieser bedarfsabhangige ezug von Rechenleistung wird als Chance zur Beseitigung von Ineffizienzen und zur Kostenreduktion gesehen. Der vorliegende Beitrag beschaftigt sich insbesondere mit Verfahren zur Dienstauswahl, uber die in den vorliegenden Konzepten solcher serviceorientierter Architekturen keine Aussagen bezuglich Anwendbarkeit und Performanz gefallt werden. Er vergleicht die existierenden Ansatze mit einem koordinatorfreien - auf okonomischen Prinzipien beruhenden - Ansatz anhand okonomischer Metriken. Mittels einer Simulation werden unterschiedliche Verfahren in verschiedenen Netzwerk-szenarien untersucht und die bessere Anpassungsfahigkeit der koordinatorfreien Variante an Dynamik und Knotendichte des Netzwerks gezeigt.