Towards Complex Negotiation for Cloud Economy

In a Cloud computing environment, the dynamic configuration of a personalized collection of resources often requires Cloud participants (consumers, brokers, and providers) to establish service-level agreements (SLAs) through negotiation. However, to date, state-of-the-art approaches in Cloud computing provides limited or no support for dynamic SLAs negotiation. This position paper 1) presents the design of a complex Cloud negotiation mechanism that supports negotiation activities in interrelated markets: a Cloud service market between consumer agents and broker agents, and multiple Cloud resource markets between broker agents and provider agents, 2) specifies the negotiation protocols and strategies of consumer and broker agents in a Cloud service market, and 3) presents the design of the contracting and coordination algorithms for the concurrent negotiation activities between broker and provider agents in multiple Cloud resource markets. The complex Cloud negotiation mechanism is designed to support complex negotiation activities in interrelated markets in which the negotiation outcomes between broker and provider agents in a Cloud resource market can potentially influence the negotiation outcomes of broker and consumer agents in a Cloud service market. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this work is the earliest proposal for a complex Cloud negotiation mechanism.