Dirk Neumann & Mark Baker 
Economic Models and Algorithms for Distributed Systems 

Distributed computing paradigms for sharing resources such as Clouds, Grids, Peer-to-Peer systems, or voluntary computing are becoming increasingly popular. While there are some success stories such as Planet Lab, One Lab, BOINC, Bit Torrent, and SETI@home, a widespread use of these technologies for business applications has not yet been achieved. In a business environment, mechanisms are needed to provide incentives to potential users for participating in such networks. These mechanisms may range from simple non-monetary access rights, monetary payments to specific policies for sharing. Although a few models for a framework have been discussed (in the general area of a ‘Grid Economy’), none of these models has yet been realised in practice. This book attempts to fill this gap by discussing the reasons for such limited take-up and exploring incentive mechanisms for resource sharing in distributed systems. The purpose of this book is to identify research challenges in successfully using and deploying resource sharing strategies in open-source and commercial distributed systems.

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