Using SLA mapping to increase market liquidity

Abstract

Research into computing resource markets has mainly considered the allocative fairness of market mechanisms. It has not been discussed how a large variety of resource types influences the market liquidity. Markets containing large numbers of buyers and sellers for heterogeneous resources suffer from a low likelihood of matching offers and requests. Traders therefore have the high risk of not being able to trade resources. We suggest a solution that derives SLA templates from a large number of heterogeneous SLAs in the market and, by using these templates instead of the original SLAs, facilitates SLA mapping. The usefulness of this approach is demonstrated through simulation results and a comparison with an alternative approach, in which SLAs are predefined. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.