Market-based Resource Allocation for Grid Computing: A Model and Simulation

Resource allocation is an important aspect of Grid computing. One approach uses market mechanisms to allocate resources. In this paper, we review the literature on market-based resource allocation for Grid computing classifying approaches as modelor state-based and pre-emptive or non-pre-emptive. Many of the existing market-based approaches take it for granted that markets are an improvement. We investigate under which circumstances marketbased resource allocation by continuous double auctions and by the proportional share protocol, respectively, outperforms a conventional round-robin approach. To answer this question, we develop and justify a model for clients, servers and the market, and present simulation results. The factors which are studied include the amount of load in the system, the number of resources, different degrees of resource heterogeneity, and communication delays.