Decentralised Economic Resource Allocation For Computational Grids

145 Pages·2009·5.32 MB·English

Decentralised Economic Resource Allocation
For Computational Grids
by
Simon Mark Davy
Submittedinaccordancewiththerequirements
forthedegreeofDoctorofPhilosophy.
TheUniversityofLeeds
SchoolofComputing
November2008
Thecandidateconfirmsthattheworksubmittedishisownandthattheappropriate
credithasbeengivenwherereferencehasbeenmadetotheworkofothers.
Thiscopyhasbeensuppliedwiththeunderstandingthatitiscopyrightmaterial
andthatnoquotationfromthethesismaybepublishedwithoutproper
acknowledgement.
Abstract
Grid computing is the concept of harnessing the power of many computational re-
sources in a transparent manner. It is currently an active research area, with significant
challengesduetothescaleandlevelofheterogeneityinvolved. Oneofthekeychallenges
inimplementinggridsystemsisresourceallocation. Currently,centralisedapproachesare
employedthathavelimitedscalabilityandreliability,whichisakeyfactorinachievinga
usablegridsystem.
The field of economics is the study of allocating scarce resources using economic
mechanisms. Such systems can be highly scalable, robust and adaptive and as such are a
potentialsolutiontothegridallocationproblem. Thereisalsoanaturalfitoftheeconomic
allocationmetaphortogridsystems,giventhediversityofautonomyofgridresources.
We propose that an economic system is a suitable mechanism for grid resource allo-
cation. We propose a simple market mechanism to explore this idea. Our system is a
fully decentralised economic allocation scheme, which aims to achieve a high degree of
scalabilityandreliability,andeasilyallowsresourcestoretaintheirautonomy.
We implement a simulation of a grid system to analyse this system, and explore its
performance and scalability, with a comparison to existing systems. We use a network
tofacilitatecommunicationbetweenparticipatingagents,andwepayparticularattention
to the topology of the network between participating agents, examining the effects of
differenttopologiesontheperformanceofthesystem.
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Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank my supervisors Karim Djemame and Jason Noble for all their time,
effort and knowledge. I’d like to thank the Biosystems Research Group at the School of
Computing for much insightful discussion and enjoyable comradeship. For supporting
methroughtheprocessofcompletingthisthesis,I’dliketothankmywonderfulwife.
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Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.1 ComputationalGrids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.2 EconomicResourceAllocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.3 AnEconomicGrid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 InvestigationMethodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4 ThesisContribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.5 ThesisOverview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2 ResourceAllocationonGridSystems 6
2.1 TheGridConcept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2 HistoryofGridResearch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2.1 EarlyWork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2.2 TheOpenGridForum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.3 GridChallenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.4 GridApplications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.4.1 TypesofApplication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.4.2 TypesofGridSystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.5 Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.5.1 GridFabricLayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.5.1.1 ComputationalResources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.5.1.2 StorageResources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.5.1.3 NetworkResources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.5.2 GridConnectivityLayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.5.3 GridResourceLayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.5.4 GridCollectiveLayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.5.5 GridApplicationLayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
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2.5.6 GirdArchitectureSummary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.6 ResourceDiscoveryandAllocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.6.1 ResourceDiscovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.6.2 ResourceSelection/Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.6.3 LimitationsofCentralisedApproaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3 EconomicsandMarketBasedControl 20
3.1 Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.1.1 Supply,Demand,andMarketEquilibrium . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.1.2 MarketTraders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.1.3 MarketRulesandAuctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.1.3.1 EnglishAuction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.1.3.2 DutchAuction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.1.3.3 Sealed-bidAuction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.1.3.4 SecondPriceSealedBidAuction . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.1.3.5 DoubleAuctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.1.3.6 OtherAuctionMechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.1.4 ComputationalEconomics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.1.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.1.6 Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.2 ComputationalEconomicTraders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.2.1 ModellingHumanTraders: TheTradingAgentCompetition . . . 29
3.2.2 SimpleComputationalTraders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.2.2.1 ZIPTraders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.2.2.2 DecentralisedZIPTraders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.2.2.3 GDTraders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.2.2.4 SimpleAgentComparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.3 MarketBasedControl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.3.1 EarlyPre-GridWork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.3.1.1 AgoricOpenSystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.3.1.2 Enterprise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.3.1.3 Spawn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.3.1.4 OtherPre-GridSystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.3.2 GridMBCSystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.3.2.1 Nimrod/G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
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3.3.2.2 Bellagio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.3.2.3 Tycoon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.3.2.4 TheSE3DCompetition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.3.2.5 HewlettPackard’sUtilityDataCentre . . . . . . . . . 41
3.3.2.6 CATNETS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.3.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.4 NetworkTheory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.4.1 Motivation: ModellingtheMarketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.4.2 NetworkCharacteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.4.2.1 StatisticalAnalysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.4.3 TypesofNetwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.4.3.1 RandomNetworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.4.3.2 RegularNetworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.4.3.3 SmallWorldNetworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.4.3.4 ScaleFreeNetworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.4.3.5 SocialNetworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.4.4 AGridMarketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4 Methodology 51
4.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.2 TheGridModel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.2.1 ResourcesandJobs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.2.2 GridSites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.2.3 OtherAbstractionsandAssumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.3 TheMarketModel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.3.1 Commodities-WhatAreWeTrading? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.3.2 TraderRationale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.3.3 BuyersandSellers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.3.4 AuctionRules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.4 EconomicCommunicationModel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.4.1 TraderRelationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.4.2 NetworkTopology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.5 ModelEvaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.5.1 Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.5.2 Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
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4.6 PreliminaryInvestigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.7 ImplementationDetails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.7.1 ApproximatingReality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.7.2 SystemLoad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.7.3 SupplyandDemand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.7.4 DecentralisedTrading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.7.4.1 AcceptanceProtocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.7.4.2 ObservingSuccess/Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.7.5 TechnicalDetails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.8 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
5 PerformanceResults 69
5.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.2 Sealed-BidAuction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.2.1 ADecentralisedSealedBidAuction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.2.1.1 TheSealedBidAuctionProtocol . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.2.2 BasicPerformance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.2.3 GridAllocationEfficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
5.2.3.1 JobSize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
5.2.4 LimitPrice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
5.2.4.1 Nodedegree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5.2.5 EconomicPerformance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.2.6 Scalability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.2.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
5.3 CDAAuction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.3.1 CDAImplementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.3.2 ZIPimplementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
5.3.3 CDAwithZICTraders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.3.4 CDAwithZIPDTraders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
5.3.5 CDASummary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.4 NetworkTopologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.4.1 ImplementationDetails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.4.2 Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5.4.2.1 SmallWorldNetworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5.4.2.2 ScaleFreeNetworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
5.4.2.3 SocialNetworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
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5.4.3 NetworksSummary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
6 Evaluation 110
6.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
6.2 ACentralisedGridAllocationMechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
6.2.1 PerformanceCharacteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
6.3 ComparisonofSystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
6.4 MarketAdaption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
6.5 EvaluationSummary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
7 ConclusionsandFurtherWork 121
7.1 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
7.1.1 Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
7.2 ThesisContribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
7.3 FurtherWork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
7.3.1 AMoreAccurateModeloftheGrid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
7.3.2 GridInfrastructureandNetworkTopology . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
7.3.3 AuctionMechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
7.3.4 TraderStrategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
7.3.5 FurtherEconomicEvaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Bibliography 127
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Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Motivation
1.1.1 Computational Grids
Theareaof“gridcomputing”,ormorerecently“cloudcomputing”isanongoingresearch
area looking at computing resource provision. It denotes a concept of computers as a
utility, where computational resource can be provided as-and-when needed transparently
to large and diverse numbers of users. It is similar in concept to other utilities, such as
water or electricity, indeed the grid name owes in part to its similarity in concept to the
National Grid. An ideal grid system would allow users to utilise massive computational
resourcesaseasilyandastransparentlyasweplugsomethingintoapowersocketathome
andturniton.
Whileallowingdifferentpeopletosharecomputingresourcesisnothingnew,thegrid
takes the concept to a new level in several ways. Firstly, the sheer scale is much larger.
Previously, a few hundred machines, or at the most a few thousand, have been harnessed
together in some sort of grid-like system. The grid concept takes these numbers into the
tensofthousand,orevenmillions. Secondly,andmoreimportantly,itreliesonthesharing
of multiple resources owned and administered by different organisations or individuals.
In previous resource sharing systems, the resources are all owned by a single entity. Grid
computing, however, aims to allow many resource-owners to participate in sharing their
resourcestogetherinasingleunifiedmanner. Thisistheultimateaimofgridcomputing,
1
Chapter1 2 Introduction
and presents some major research challenges. Arguably the most significant of these
challenges,andtheonewiththefewestpracticalsolutions,isresourceallocation.
In a grid environment, a resource is some computational facility which users wish
to utilise for their applications and programs. The challenges of deciding which users
run which applications on whose resources are significant, especially in the face of huge
numbers of resources and different administrative domains. Additionally, to achieve the
fullpotentialofgridcomputing,resourceallocationneedstobedoneinafast,automatic,
robustandscalablemanner.
The current dominant approach is to have a central point that maintains the state of
allresourcesonthegrid,andprovideswaysofselectingsuitableresourcestouse. Thisis
thehistoricalapproachtoallocatingcomputingresources,asmostcomputationalsystems
are centralised in nature. However, this method is not particularly scalable or robust,
at least in current implementations, especially when you start to scale to thousands of
resources. Current resource allocations systems do not deliver the necessary resource
allocationcapabilitiesnecessarytorealisethegridconcept.
1.1.2 Economic Resource Allocation
The problem of allocating scarce resources is one that has been ever-present in human
history. A resource is scarce if there is not enough supply of that resource to meet the
corresponding demand for at a price of 0. The raw method used by nature for allocat-
ing such resources is through competition and survival. Humans have developed more
sophisticatedsystemsforfacilitatingthisallocation,whichisthesubjectofeconomics.
Economicsprovidesasystemforallocatingscarceresourcesbetweendifferentparties
usingunderstoodmechanismstoswap(trade)oneresourceforanother,usuallymoneyin
exchange for some other resource. Many varying and complex economic systems have
arisen over the centuries of human history to facilitate the exchange of scarce goods,
and in recent centuries, these system have been much examined in their function and
performance. Economicsystemsarerecognisedtobeadaptivetochange,highlyscalable
and robust to the failure of individual components. They have evolved to provide highly
efficientmethodsofresourcedistributionatalargescale.
The property of economic systems that gives rise to these factors is that they are
generally decentralised at the base level, except in extreme cases (such as governmen-
tal regulation). Whilst many existing economic systems utilise a central mechanism for
efficiency, base economic systems developed from individuals acting independent of any
central imperative. This decentralisation is present in two distinct ways. Firstly, individ-