Rate allocation in overlay networks based on theory of firm consumer

Abstract

We have designed a competitive market model for the overlay network in which each offered service is thought of as a commodity and the users can be viewed as consumers. The origin servers and the users who relay the service to their downstream nodes can thus be thought of as firms of the economy. Considering the high dynamics of the network due to joining and leaving of the nodes, the mechanism tries to regulate the price of each service in such a way that general equilibrium holds. For this property to hold in all generality, it tries to find a vector of prices such that demand of each service becomes equal to its supply. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.