Combining Futures and Spot Markets: A Hybrid Market Approach to Economic Grid Resource Management

Abstract

Economic forms of resource management in which users can express their valuations for service, offer new possibilities for optimizing resource allocations in Grids. If users are to correctly express these valuations, quality of service guarantees need to be given with respect to the turnaround time of their workloads. Market mechanisms that support bidding and allocations in future time are crucial for delivering such guarantees. To deal with the significant delays that these mechanisms introduce in the allocation process, we present a hybrid market approach in which a low-latency spot market coexists with a higher latency futures market. Based on simulated market scenarios, we show how this combination can significantly increase the total value realized by the Grid infrastructure. We also demonstrate how providers can react to price dynamics in such a hybrid market setting. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.