What is Incentive Compatibility

As grid computing technology moves further up the adoption curve, the issues of dealing with conflicting user requirements formulated by different users become more prevalent. In addition, the need to negotiate static sharing agreements between the different stakeholders in a grid system is time-consuming and offers limited incentive for resource owners to step into the grid’s infrastructure in a provider role. Resource management approaches that are currently adopted in grids are not able to deal with these issues in a flexible, value-maximizing way because of their system-centric approach. This contribution presents a clear motivation for the use of economic forms of scheduling in grid computing environments to address these shortcomings. The authors also provide an introductory overview of the different forms of market mechanisms that have been adopted by researchers in the field. In addition, the authors present simulation results concerning the use of Vickrey auctions and commodity markets as market mechanisms for dynamic pricing in grid resource markets.