A General Auction-based Architecture for Resource Allocation

In this paper we present a framework for resource allocation based on auctions. We leverage (i) application awareness to achieve the performance metrics desired by the application (ii) prediction to preallocate resources based on expected demand, and (iii) a control channel to exchange information between the client and the allocator to improve resource utilization. We design a scheme that is (i) general: can be used in many application contexts, (ii) flexible: can be used under a variety of workloads, (iii) efficient: provides high resource utilization with low overhead, (iv) responsive: adapts quickly to client demand, and (v) fair: provides proportional fairness to client requests. Simulation results show that the simple auction-based allocation techniques we propose can be used to achieve these goals with excellent performance. High resource utilization, low delay, and proportional fairness in terms of delay and resource allocation can be observed even under bursty application workloads. Furthermore, the simple prediction techniques we propose can greatly improve responsiveness. However, we note that misprediction of future load can cause a significant decrease in system utilization. We compare our allocation techniques with lottery scheduling and note that our auction-based resource allocation scheme performs better under most application request workloads.