Decentralized Resource Scheduling in Grid/Cloud Computing

In the Grid/Cloud environment, applications or services and resources belong to different organizations with different objectives. Entities in the Grid/Cloud are autonomous and self-interested; however, they are willing to share their resources and services to achieve their individual and collective goals. In such open environment, the scheduling decision is a challenge given the decentralized nature of the environment. Each entity has specific requirements and objectives that need to achieve. In this thesis, we review the Grid/Cloud computing technologies, environment characteristics and structure and indicate the challenges within the resource scheduling. We capture the Grid/Cloud scheduling model based on the complete requirement of the environment. We further create a mapping between the Grid/Cloud scheduling problem and the combinatorial allocation problem and propose an adequate economic-based optimization model based on the characteristic and the structure nature of the Grid/Cloud. By adequacy, we mean that a comprehensive view of required properties of the Grid/Cloud is captured. We utilize the captured properties and propose a bidding language that is expressive where entities have the ability to specify any set of preferences in the Grid/Cloud and simple as entities have the ability to express structured preferences directly. We propose a winner determination model and mechanism that utilizes the proposed bidding language and finds a scheduling solution. Our proposed approach integrates concepts and principles of mechanism design and classical scheduling theory. Furthermore, we argue that in such open environment privacy concerns by nature is part of the requirement in the Grid/Cloud. Hence, any scheduling decision within the Grid/Cloud computing environment is to incorporate the feasibility of privacy protection of an entity. Each entity has specific requirements in terms of scheduling and privacy preferences. We analyze the privacy problem in the Grid/Cloud computing environment and propose an economic based model and solution architecture that provides a scheduling solution given privacy concerns in the Grid/Cloud. Finally, as a demonstration of the applicability of the approach, we apply our solution by integrating with Globus toolkit (a well adopted tool to enable Grid/Cloud computing environment). We also, created simulation experimental results to capture the economic and time efficiency of the proposed solution

A Pricing Information Service for Grid Computing

This paper addresses two shortcomings that exist in the area of pricing Grid services in an economic Grid environment. The first shortcoming is that there are no standards for pricing schemes, caused by a large difference in the units that are traded (e.g. CPU cycles or virtual clusters) in Grid computing. The second shortcoming is the lack of a model for managing the pricing of informational elements (e.g. software applications) and computational elements (e.g. virtual machines, which comprise resources such as CPU, memory, disk space, network bandwidth). This paper presents a pricing service for Grid computing services, which resolves the shortcomings by introducing a general pricing scheme for informational and computational elements. We describe the functional requirements, architecture, and the interfaces of the pricing service. The pricing service allows expressing the proposed general pricing scheme as an XML document, which can be linked to service level agreements. Contrary to other proposals on pricing, the pricing service is separated from the functionality of metering, accounting, and payment. To validate the concept of a pricing information service, we portray two Utility Computing scenarios

Organization based multiagent architecture for distributed environments

[EN]Distributed environments represent a complex field in which applied solutions should be flexible and include significant adaptation capabilities. These environments are related to problems where multiple users and devices may interact, and where simple and local solutions could possibly generate good results, but may not be effective with regards to use and interaction. There are many techniques that can be employed to face this kind of problems, from CORBA to multi-agent systems, passing by web-services and SOA, among others. All those methodologies have their advantages and disadvantages that are properly analyzed in this documents, to finally explain the new architecture presented as a solution for distributed environment problems. The new architecture for solving complex solutions in distributed environments presented here is called OBaMADE: Organization Based Multiagent Architecture for Distributed Environments. It is a multiagent architecture based on the organizations of agents paradigm, where the agents in the architecture are structured into organizations to improve their organizational capabilities. The reasoning power of the architecture is based on the Case-Based Reasoning methology, being implemented in a internal organization that uses agents to create services to solve the external request made by the users. The OBaMADE architecture has been successfully applied to two different case studies where its prediction capabilities have been properly checked. Those case studies have showed optimistic results and, being complex systems, have demonstrated the abstraction and generalizations capabilities of the architecture. Nevertheless OBaMADE is intended to be able to solve much other kind of problems in distributed environments scenarios. It should be applied to other varieties of situations and to other knowledge fields to fully develop its potencial.[ES]Los entornos distribuidos representan un campo de conocimiento complejo en el que las soluciones a aplicar deben ser flexibles y deben contar con gran capacidad de adaptación. Este tipo de entornos está normalmente relacionado con problemas donde varios usuarios y dispositivos entran en juego. Para solucionar dichos problemas, pueden utilizarse sistemas locales que, aunque ofrezcan buenos resultados en términos de calidad de los mismos, no son tan efectivos en cuanto a la interacción y posibilidades de uso. Existen múltiples técnicas que pueden ser empleadas para resolver este tipo de problemas, desde CORBA a sistemas multiagente, pasando por servicios web y SOA, entre otros. Todas estas mitologías tienen sus ventajas e inconvenientes, que se analizan en este documento, para explicar, finalmente, la nueva arquitectura presentada como una solución para los problemas generados en entornos distribuidos. La nueva arquitectura aquí se llama OBaMADE, que es el acrónimo del inglés Organization Based Multiagent Architecture for Distributed Environments (Arquitectura Multiagente Basada en Organizaciones para Entornos Distribuidos). Se trata de una arquitectura multiagente basasa en el paradigma de las organizaciones de agente, donde los agentes que forman parte de la arquitectura se estructuran en organizaciones para mejorar sus capacidades organizativas. La capacidad de razonamiento de la arquitectura está basada en la metodología de razonamiento basado en casos, que se ha implementado en una de las organizaciones internas de la arquitectura por medio de agentes que crean servicios que responden a las solicitudes externas de los usuarios. La arquitectura OBaMADE se ha aplicado de forma exitosa a dos casos de estudio diferentes, en los que se han demostrado sus capacidades predictivas. Aplicando OBaMADE a estos casos de estudio se han obtenido resultados esperanzadores y, al ser sistemas complejos, se han demostrado las capacidades tanto de abstracción como de generalización de la arquitectura presentada. Sin embargo, esta arquitectura está diseñada para poder ser aplicada a más tipo de problemas de entornos distribuidos. Debe ser aplicada a más variadas situaciones y a otros campos de conocimiento para desarrollar completamente el potencial de esta arquitectura

Cloud Market Maker: An automated dynamic pricing marketplace for cloud users

© 2015 Elsevier B.V. Abstract Cloud providers commonly incur heavy upfront set up costs which remain almost constant whether they serve a single or many customers. In order to generate a return on this investment, a suitable pricing strategy is required by providers. Established industries such as the airlines employ dynamic pricing to maximize their revenues. In order to increase their resource utilization rates, cloud providers could also use dynamic pricing for their services. At present however most providers use static schemes for pricing their resources. This work presents a new dynamic pricing mechanism for cloud providers. Furthermore, at present no platform exists that provides a dynamic unified view of the different cloud offerings in real-time. Due to a rapidly changing landscape and a limited knowledge of the cloud marketplace, consumers can often end up choosing a cloud provider that is more expensive or does not give them what they really need. This is because some providers spend significantly on advertising their services online. In order to assist cloud customers in the selection of a suitable resource and cloud providers in implementing dynamic pricing, this work describes an automated dynamic pricing marketplace and a decision support system for cloud users. We present a multi-agent multi-auction based system through which such services are delivered. An evaluation has been carried out to determine how effectively the Cloud Market Maker selects the resource, dynamically adjusts the price for the cloud users and the suitability of dynamic pricing for the cloud environment

Open Innovation: Organizational Practices and Policy Implications

Durant la darrera dècada, a causa de la necessitat de recuperacióeconòmica desprésde la crisi d’Internet i la recessió mundial, la innovacióoberta ha emergit com la nova estratègia d’innovació per a organitzacions en el sector privat i el públic. La innovacióoberta ha guanyat importància en les estratègies d’innovació de les empreses multinacionalsa causa del ràpidcreixement dels mercats d’idees i tecnologies, els mateixos que són una alternativa per a la comercialització de solucionstecnològiquesmitjançantllicències i patents. D’altra banda, atesa la necessitat de sistemes públics d’innovació que facilitin la col•laboració entre empresesnacionals i internacionals, els governs han dissenyat nous programes i estratègies per capturar els beneficis en inversionsde R+D. Aquesta tesi doctoral està composta per set articles de recerca que tracten la innovació oberta des dediversos nivells d’anàlisi.Es tracta d’un estudi profundsobre la innovacióobertades del nivell de projectes fins al nivell de sistemes regionals d’innovació, queproporciona, així,una contribució única i suficient per explicar científicament el fenomen d’estudi. També ofereix recomanacions valuoses per a directius i gestors d’innovació en el sector públic i el privat. Els estudis que es presenten en aquesta tesi doctoral inclouen una exploració de diversos tipus d’intermediaris d’innovació a Europa i als Estats Units, l’anàlisi de la qual posaen evidència l’existència de diversos enfocaments i propostes de valor que adopten elsintermediaris d’innovació. En primer lloc, dos estudis diferents se centren en el model de negoci dels intermediaris d’innovaciód’una cara,one-sided, i de dues cares, two-sided. Aquests dos estudis de cases basen en informació obtinguda a partir d’entrevistes, enquestes i documentació pública. En segon lloc, un altre cas d’estudi,elaborat a l’empresa NineSigma –unintermediari d’innovació–, revela com els intermediaris no tan sols sónútils per obtenir noves respostes a problemes tecnològics en els mercats d’idees i tecnologies, sinó també per ajudar les empreses en l’articulació i lacodificació del coneixement.Tots aquests estudis han revelat que les empresescerquen el coneixement extern per accelerar els seus processos d’innovació, ja que les solucions obtingudes els permetencomercialitzar els productes en els mercatsmés ràpidament. En tercer lloc, un cinquè estudi confirma l’ús de la innovacióoberta com a estratègia de col•laboració per accelerar el procés d’innovació.Això no obstant, la col•laboració amb socis científics no beneficia el fet d’accelerar projectes d’innovació tecnològica. Així mateix, aquest estudi suggereix que els projectes de risc corporatiu,venture capital, i unitats de negocis establertes com a core businesses beneficien de la col•laboraciódirecta amb socis de mercat i universitats. Finalment, els dos estudis finals proporcionen directrius de polítiques d’innovacióa la Unió Europea i al sistema d’innovació del Mediterrani, en què la innovacióoberta i la innovació de serveis imodels de negoci representen la novetat en un estudi d’escala política. En general, aquesta tesi doctoral intenta connectar els estudis emergents d’innovacióoberta amb les teories de gestió de la innovació, com són els intermediaris d’innovació, les capacitats dinàmiques, la velocitat de la innovació, elrisc corporatiu i les polítiques d’innovació. Les principals contribucions acadèmiques d’aquesta tesi són: a) una tipologia del model de negoci de diversos intermediaris d’innovació;b) una contribució al model de Zollo i Winter (2002) sobre els mecanismes d’aprenentatge a partir del’ús dels intermediaris; c) laconfirmació empíricaque la innovacióoberta accelera la velocitat dels processos d’innovació;d) la primera publicaciósobre el sistema d’innovació del Mediterrani, i e) noves polítiques d’innovació per ala Unió Europea. Finalment, l’estudi de la innovacióoberta a diversos nivells, des demúltiples perspectives teòriques, l’ús de dades qualitatives i quantitatives, i els diferents mètodes d’anàlisi han facilitat el descobriment de noves oportunitats de recerca,que es presentenal final d’aquesta tesi.Durante la última década, debido a la necesidad de recuperación económica después la crisis de Internet y recesión mundial, la innovación abierta ha emergido como la nueva estrategia de innovación para organizaciones en el sector privado y público. La innovación abierta ha ganado importancia en las estrategias de innovación de las empresas multinacionalesdebido al rápido crecimientos de los mercados de ideas y tecnologías, los mismos que son una alternativa para la comercialización de soluciones tecnológicas a través delicencias y patentes. Por otra parte, dada la necesidad de sistemas públicos de innovación que faciliten la colaboración entre empresas nacionales e internacionales, los gobiernos han diseñando nuevos programas y estrategias para capturar los beneficios en inversionesde I+D. La presente tesis doctoral está compuesta por siete artículos de investigación que abordan la innovación abierta desde diferentes niveles de análisis. Los mismos proporcionan un profundo estudio sobre la innovación abierta, desde el nivel de los proyectos hasta el nivel de sistemas regionales de innovación, proporcionando así una contribución única y suficiente para explicar científicamente el fenómeno de estudio y proporcionar recomendaciones valiosas para directivos y gestores de innovación en sectores públicos y privados. Los estudios presentados en esta tesis doctoral incluyen una exploración de diferentes tipos de intermediarios de innovación en Europa y EE.UU., donde el análisis pone en evidencia la existencia de diferentes enfoques y propuestas de valor adoptados por los intermediarios de innovación. Primero, dos diferentes estudios se centran en el modelo de negocio de los intermediarios de innovación de una cara “one-sided” y dos caras “two-sided”. Estos dos estudios de caso se basan en información obtenida mediante entrevistas, encuestas y documentación pública. Posteriormente, un caso de estudio más elaborado en la empresa NineSigma - un intermediario de innovación - revela cómo los intermediarios no son sólo útiles para obtener nuevas respuestas a problemas tecnológicos en los mercados de ideas y tecnologías, sino también para ayudar a las empresas en la articulación y codificación del conocimiento.Todos estos estudios han revelado que las empresas buscan el conocimiento externo para acelerar su proceso de innovación, ya que las soluciones obtenidas les permitiría comercializar más rápidamente los productos en los mercados. Tercero, un quinto estudio confirma el uso de la innovación abierta, como estrategia de colaboración para acelerar el proceso de innovación. Sin embargo, la colaboración con socios científicos no beneficia ha acelerar proyectos de innovación tecnológica. Asimismo, este estudio sugiere que los proyectos de riesgo corporativo “venture capital” y de unidades de negocios establecidas ¨core Business” se benefician de la colaboración directa con socios de mercado y universidades. Finalmente, los dos estudios finales proporcionan directrices de política de innovación en la Unión Europea y en el Sistema de Innovación del Mediterráneo, donde la innovación abierta, la innovación de servicios y modelos de negocio representan la novedad en un estudio a nivel de la política. En general, esta tesis doctoral intenta conectar los estudios emergentes de innovación abierta y las teorías de gestión de la innovación, tales como los intermediarios de innovación, las capacidades dinámicas, la velocidad de la innovación, riesgo corporativo y la política de innovación. Las principales contribuciones académicas en esta tesis son: a) una tipología del modelo de negocio de diferentes intermediarios de innovación; b) una contribución al modelo de Zollo y Winter (2002) sobre los mecanismos de aprendizaje a través del uso de los intermediarios; c) laconfirmación empíricaque la innovación abierta acelera la velocidad de los procesos de innovación; d) la primera publicación sobre el Sistema de Innovación del Mediterráneo; y e) nuevas políticas de innovación para la Unión Europea. Finalmente, el estudio de la innovación abierta a diferentes niveles, desde múltiples perspectivas teóricas, el uso de datos cualitativos y cuantitativos y los diferentes métodos de análisis han facilitado el descubrimiento de nuevas oportunidades de investigación las que son presentadas al final de esta tesis.Over the last decade, open innovation has impacted and enhanced firms’ collaboration strategies and public policy programs as this new ‘paradigm shift’ emerged from business’ needs to recover from the dot-com crash and belt-tightening of global recession. In this new wave of innovation, companies refocused on organic growth and in customer and consumer markets to enrich their business units and new corporate venturing initiatives. Also, open innovation gained importance in firm’s innovation strategies as technology and idea markets became a path to commercialize undeveloped solutions via licenses and patents. Moreover, given the need of innovation systems that require the collaboration among firms locally and internationally, public governments are designing new programs and strategies to capture the benefits of investment in R&D programs. This doctoral thesis addresses the aforementioned issues and provides a multi-level research framework that is comprised by seven complementary research articles. These provide a broad perspective on open innovation, from the project level to the innovation system level of analysis, each analyzing a unique area in enough depth to provide all the necessary insights and future valuable guidelines to managers and policy makers. The studies include an exploration of different types of innovation intermediaries in Europe and the US where the analysis reveals different approaches and value propositions adopted by innovation intermediaries. Two further studies focus on the business model of one-sided and two-sided innovation intermediaries and how these create and capture value for firms in technology and idea markets. These two independent case studies rely on archival information, interviews and surveys. A further in-depth case study of NineSigma – an innovation intermediary – reveals how intermediaries are not only beneficial to capture ideas from technology and idea markets but also to assist firms in articulating and codifying firms’ scientific problems. All these studies revealed firms’ seek for external knowledge to speed up their innovation process, as earlier results would allow them to launch faster products to market or determine the commercial unavailability of corporate venturing initiatives. The fifth study confirms open innovation collaboration speeds up the innovation process but collaboration with scientific partners do not help to speed up projects. Also, this study suggests when corporate venturing and core business unit can benefit from collaborating with external market and scientific partners. The two final studies provide innovation policy guidelines for the European Union and Mediterranean System of Innovation where open innovation, service innovation and business models represent the novelty in a policy level study. Overall, this doctoral thesis addresses the disconnection between open innovation studies and established streams of literature such as innovation intermediaries, dynamic capabilities, innovation speed, corporate venturing and innovation policy. The paramount academic contributions in this thesis include: a) an overarching business model typology of different innovation intermediaries, which is meant to be used to decide between collaborating with one-sided vs. two-sided innovation intermediaries; b) a contribution to Zollo and Winter’s (2002) framework on how innovation intermediaries help firms articulating and codifying knowledge and the managerial tensions and benefits of an intermediated external knowledge acquisition strategy; c) empirical support to the claim that open innovation speeds up the innovation process as well as the most advantageous type of collaboration to accelerate the speed of technology transfer, from research labs to business units, for corporate venturing and core business units; d) the first publication on the Mediterranean System of Innovation; and e) new policy initiatives for the European Union where the insights of open innovation and business models enlarged the common theoretical contributions on innovation systems. In this thesis the study of open innovation at different levels, the multiple theoretical perspectives, the use of qualitative and quantitative data and the different methods of analysis facilitated the discovery of future research opportunities. For this reason, this thesis concludes with recommendations for further scholarly research on open innovation, possible connections to established literatures and new methods and insights for managers interested on adopting open innovation in their own firms

A Framework to assess the value of web services

Large organizations often begin to adopt new software technologies prior to establishing appropriate value frameworks. This approach may produce sub-optimal investment decisions and technology adoption rates, and introduce excessive risk. In this thesis, a value-based framework is developed for assessing the impact of Web Services technology investments on business systems development. The value factors included in the framework are data management, application development and deployment, system integration, and response time to market opportunities

Multi-Agent Systems

This Special Issue ""Multi-Agent Systems"" gathers original research articles reporting results on the steadily growing area of agent-oriented computing and multi-agent systems technologies. After more than 20 years of academic research on multi-agent systems (MASs), in fact, agent-oriented models and technologies have been promoted as the most suitable candidates for the design and development of distributed and intelligent applications in complex and dynamic environments. With respect to both their quality and range, the papers in this Special Issue already represent a meaningful sample of the most recent advancements in the field of agent-oriented models and technologies. In particular, the 17 contributions cover agent-based modeling and simulation, situated multi-agent systems, socio-technical multi-agent systems, and semantic technologies applied to multi-agent systems. In fact, it is surprising to witness how such a limited portion of MAS research already highlights the most relevant usage of agent-based models and technologies, as well as their most appreciated characteristics. We are thus confident that the readers of Applied Sciences will be able to appreciate the growing role that MASs will play in the design and development of the next generation of complex intelligent systems. This Special Issue has been converted into a yearly series, for which a new call for papers is already available at the Applied Sciences journal’s website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci/special_issues/Multi-Agent_Systems_2019

A Hybrid Simulation Framework of Consumer-to-Consumer Ecommerce Space

In the past decade, ecommerce transformed the business models of many organizations. Information Technology leveled the playing field for new participants, who were capable of causing disruptive changes in every industry. Web 2.0 or Social Web further redefined ways users enlist for services. It is now easy to be influenced to make choices of services based on recommendations of friends and popularity amongst peers. This research proposes a simulation framework to investigate how actions of stakeholders at this level of complexity affect system performance as well as the dynamics that exist between different models using concepts from the fields of operations engineering, engineering management, and multi-model simulation. Viewing this complex model from a systems perspective calls for the integration of different levels of behaviors. Complex interactions exist among stakeholders, the environment and available technology. The presence of continuous and discrete behaviors coupled with stochastic and deterministic behaviors present challenges for using standalone simulation tools to simulate the business model. We propose a framework that takes into account dynamic system complexity and risk from a hybrid paradigm. The SCOR model is employed to map the business processes and it is implemented using agent based simulation and system dynamics. By combining system dynamics at the strategy level with agent based models of consumer behaviors, an accurate yet efficient representation of the business model that makes for sound basis of decision making can be achieved to maximize stakeholders\u27 utility

Coordination in Service Value Networks - A Mechanism Design Approach

The fundamental paradigm shift from traditional value chains to agile service value networks (SVN) implies new economic and organizational challenges. This work provides an auction-based coordination mechanism that enables the allocation and pricing of service compositions in SVNs. The mechanism is multidimensional incentive compatible and implements an ex-post service level enforcement. Further extensions of the mechanism are evaluated following analytical and numerical research methods

Matchmaking for open innovation : perspectives on multi-sided markets

Open innovation has gained increased managerial and academic attention since 2003 and follows theoretical approaches of innovation networks. My dissertation reports an explorative action research study on participatory cases about how open innovation partnerships emerge in practice. I was engaged in industrial and academic projects where new ideas, external technologies and new start-up ventures were searched and matched for open innovation projects. Therefore, the formation of new network ties for joint business opportunities, matchmaking, is in the focus of the research. The problem of matchmaking arises from the network and market structure. In the thesis, it is shown that matchmaking for open innovation requires a multi-sided market perspective. Innovation intermediaries act as matchmaker and coordinate the matching process between multiple market agents. The contribution is a shift from matchmaking as pure transaction-based market mechanisms towards interactive mechanisms over time, but with economic long-term impact for all market agents.Algorithms and the Foundations of Software technolog