On Walrasian Price of CPU Time (Extended Abstract)

We study a Walrasian Equilibrium model to determine the prices of CPU time as merchandise. The customers have jobs that require a given length of CPU slot allocation with their valuations dependent on the assigned time slots. The owner of CPU processing time receives compensation for time slots sold to the customers, subject to the condition that the slots sold to a customer is those that customer most desires, given the price structure for the time slots. We establish conditions for jobs to have Walrasian Equilibrium, and obtain algorithm and complexity results to determine Walrasian equilibrium price and allocation. In particular, the issues of excessive supply of CPU time and price dynamics are discussed under our model