Subhajyoti Bandyopadhyay

Cloud computing - The business perspective

The evolution of cloud computing over the past few years is potentially one of the major advances in the history of computing. However, if cloud computing is to achieve its potential, there needs to be a clear understanding of the various issues involved, both from the perspectives of the providers and the consumers of the technology. While a lot of research is currently taking place in the technology itself, there is an equally urgent need for understanding the business-related issues surrounding cloud computing. In this article, we identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for the cloud computing industry. We then identify the various issues that will affect the different stakeholders of cloud computing. We also issue a set of recommendations for the practitioners who will provide and manage this technology. For IS researchers, we outline the different areas of research that need attention so that we are in a position to advice the industry in the years to come. Finally, we outline some of the key issues facing governmental agencies who, due to the unique nature of the technology, will have to become intimately involved in the regulation of cloud computing.

Cloud Computing - The Business Perspective

If cloud computing (CC) is to achieve its potential, there needs to be a clear understanding of the various issues involved, both from the perspectives of the providers and the consumers of the technology. There is an equally urgent need for understanding the business-related issues surrounding CC. We interviewed several industry executives who are either involved as developers or are evaluating CC as an enterprise user. We identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for the industry. We also identify the various issues that will affect the different stakeholders of CC. We issue a set of recommendations for the practitioners who will provide and manage this technology. For IS researchers, we outline the different areas of research that need attention so that we are in a position to advise the industry in the years to come. Finally, we outline some of the key issues facing governmental agencies who will be involved in the regulation of cloud computing.

The Debate on Net Neutrality: A Policy Perspective

The status quo of prohibiting broadband service providers from charging websites for preferential access to their customers---the bedrock principle of net neutrality (NN)---is under fierce debate. We develop a game-theoretic model to address two critical issues of NN: (1) Who are gainers and losers of abandoning NN? (2) Will broadband service providers have greater incentive to expand their capacity without NN? We find that if the principle of NN is abolished, the broadband service provider stands to gain from the arrangement, as a result of extracting the preferential access fees from content providers. Content providers are thus left worse off, mirroring the stances of the two sides in the debate. Depending on parameter values in our framework, consumer surplus either does not change or is higher in the short run. When compared to the baseline case under NN, social welfare in the short run increases if one content provider pays for preferential treatment but remains unchanged if both content providers pay. Finally, we find that the incentive to expand infrastructure capacity for the broadband service provider and its optimal capacity choice under NN are higher than those under the no-net-neutrality (NNN) regime, except in some specific cases. Under NN, the broadband service provider always invests in broadband infrastructure at the socially optimal level but either under-or overinvests in infrastructure capacity in the absence of NN.

PFIRES: a policy framework for information security

Creating and maintaining effective security strategy and policy for software applications.

Coordination Strategies in an SaaS Supply Chain

The computing industry is gradually evolving to cater to the demand for software-as-a-service (SaaS). Two core competencies that have emerged over the past few years are that of the application service providers (ASPs) and the application infrastructure providers (AIPs). The arrangements between them result in system dynamics that is typical in supply chain networks. We examine the performance of an SaaS set up under different coordination strategies between these two players. Our analysis indicates that coordination between the monopoly ASP and the AIP can result in an outcome with the same overall surplus as can be achieved by a central planner. Even though the players have an incentive to deviate, it is possible to create the right incentives so that the economically efficient outcome is also the Nash equilibrium. The results of the analysis have significant implications for the coordination strategies for providers in the burgeoning business model of delivering software services over the Internet.

Competition Among Sellers in Online Exchanges

With the advent of the Internet, and the minimal information technology requirements of a trading partner to join an exchange, the number of sellers who can qualify and participate in online exchanges is greatly increased. We model the competition between two sellers with different unit costs and production capacities responding to a buyer demand. The resulting mixed-strategy equilibrium shows that one of the sellers has a normal high price with random sales, while the other seller continuously randomizes its prices. It also brings out the inherent advantages that sellers with lower marginal costs or higher capacities have in joining these exchanges, and provides a theoretical basis for understanding the relative advantages of various types of sellers in such exchanges.

Simulating sellers in online exchanges

Business-to-business (B2B) exchanges are expected to bring about lower prices for buyers through reverse auctions. Analysis of such settings for seller pricing behavior often points to mixed-strategy equilibria. In real life, it is plausible that managers learn this complex ideal behavior over time. We modeled the two-seller game in a synthetic environment, where two agents use a reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm to change their pricing strategy over time. We find that the agents do indeed converge towards the theoretical Nash equilibrium. The results are promising enough to consider the use of artificial learning mechanisms in electronic marketplace transactions.

Equilibrium Returns Policies in the Presence of Supplier Competition

The pioneering Pasternack returns-policy model analyzed channel coordination with a single supplier catering to a retailer facing stochastic demand for a perishable product with a fixed price, and the model showed that giving partial returns of unsold stock to the retailer is the optimal policy for the entire supply chain. The result thus begs the question as to why manufacturers of perishable commodities widely accept full returns of unsold stock as the norm. We model the environment as one where two capacity-constrained manufacturers compete for shelf space with the same retailer, and we show that a complete-credit returns policy is in fact the only possible equilibrium of the game. Our results obviate the need for knowing the exact functional form of the demand distribution in order to compute the returns credit, as Pasternacks results would require. From a retailers standpoint, we establish a simple procurement strategy and show that it is optimal. The same game with price-only contracting has a pure-strategy equilibrium when the supplier capacities are below a threshold value and a mixed-strategy equilibrium when the supplier capacities cross this threshold but are still so limited that no single supplier can with certainty supply all the quantity demanded.

Broadband Network Management and the Net Neutrality Debate

The debate of net neutrality and the potential regulation of net neutrality may fundamentally change the dynamics of data consumption and transmission through the internet. The existing literature on economics of net neutrality focuses only on the supply side of the market, i.e., a broadband service provider (BSP) may charge content providers for priority delivery of their content to consumers. In this paper, we explore a complete spectrum of broadband network management options based on both the supply and demand sides of the market. We find that although the BSP always prefers the non-neutral network management options, it does not always discriminate both sides of the market. From the social planner’s perspective, we find that some network management options maximize the social welfare under certain market conditions while other options reduce the social welfare. Using the terminology from a recent Federal Communications Commission report and order, we categorize the social welfare maximizing options as “reasonable network management” and the social welfare reducing options as “unreasonable discrimination”. We also identify conditions under which the BSP’s network management choices deviate from the social optimum. These conditions help establish the criteria under which the social planner might wish to regulate the BSP’s actions.

Net Neutrality, Broadband Market Coverage and Innovation at the Edge

Net neutrality is a widely debated policy issue that has the potential to alter the dynamics of accessing online content. The focal point of the debate lies in whether broadband service providers should be allowed to charge content providers for the preferential delivery of their digital content. That decision will affect broadband market coverage as well as the issue of long-term competition and innovation in the market for digital content. Our research aims to analyze and address these issues. We propose a game theoretical model with three players – the broadband service provider, the content providers, and the consumers – where the broadband service provider, in its capacity of an intermediary between the content providers and the consumers, is modeled as a two-sided market platform. We find that while abandoning the principle of net neutrality might increase consumer surplus and increase broadband market coverage in the short run, it can also have the insalubrious effect of hindering the ability of startups to compete against established rivals and thus reduce innovation at the edge. The results should be of great interest to policymakers as they debate on this very crucial issue.