An economy for managing replicated data in autonomous decentralized systems

A new approach to performing resource allocation in autonomous distributed computer systems is explored. As opposed to previous work which is based on interprocessor cooperation, the distributed system is modeled as a competitive society of microeconomic agents. The model is applied to the problem of managing distributed, replicated data objects. In this economy, jobs and transactions submitting read/write operations on data objects pay the processors to perform the operations. The processors use the revenue they earn to lease copies of data objects on which they can make a profit. The data objects themselves are active agents and set the prices for leasing copies. The economy is evaluated by a simulation study. The experiments show that the economy can substantially improve performance by varying the placement and number of copies of each data object.