A multi-agent infrastructure and a service level agreement negotiation protocol for robust scheduling in grid computing

Abstract

In this paper we propose a new infrastructure for efficient job scheduling on the Grid using multi-agent systems and a Service Level Agreement (SLA) negotiation protocol based on the Contract Net Protocol. The agent-based Grid scheduling system involves user agents, local scheduler agents, and super scheduler agents. User agents submit jobs to Grid compute resources. Local scheduler agents schedule jobs on compute resources. Super scheduler agents act as mediators between the local scheduler and the user agents to schedule the jobs at the global level of the Grid. The SLA negotiation protocol is a hierarchical bidding mechanism involving meta-SLA negotiation between the user agents and the super scheduler agents; and sub-SLA negotiation between the super scheduler agents and the local scheduler agents. In this protocol the agents exchange SLA-announcements, SLA-bids, and SLA-awards to negotiate the schedule of jobs on Grid compute resources. In the presence of uncertainties a re-negotiation mechanism is proposed to re-negotiate the SLAs in failure. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.