Resource Allocation for Wide-Area Networks Based on Economic Models

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Modern networks such as the Internet are shared by humans with heterogeneous objectives which makes the resource allocation non trivial, in that there usually are multiple objective functions to optimize which often conflict with each other. In such an environment, the criteria to evaluate the system performance varies person to person because of their different usage of network application programs, which makes the situation quite complex.We simplify this situation by incorporating a concept called application QoS, which is the quality of the services that are provided by the application programs and enjoyed by their users. We consider that the allocation of application QoS to each user determines the overall system performance, and it is required to establish a method to achieve efficient resource allocation allowing every user to maximize their own utility under the shared environment.Our approach here is to use a computational market, where agents that represent users and network application programs buy/sell goods that represent network resource and application QoS, to achieve efficient resource allocation through price adjustment mechanism.This research explores a decentralized approach that allocates QoS through a dynamic market. In our approach, each agent makes decisions according to its local knowledge and interests, and prices adjust to clear the market in each resource. Dynamic changes in agent needs and network status cause the agents to revise their decisions continually. The market prices reflect system-wide values, inducing agents to produce and consume appropriate amounts of the various resources.By implementing the mechanism for the network control, we verified the idea. One application is FreeWalk, a desktop meeting system with virtual 3D Common, and another is QoS Market, which controls a network of the size of intranets in a efficient fashion, by utilizing mobile agent technology.10