A genetic model for pricing in cloud computing markets
Mario Macías, Jordi Guitart · 2011
Cloud Computing markets arise as an efficient way to allocate resources for the execution of tasks and services within a set of geographically dispersed providers from different organisations. Client applications and service providers meet in a market and negotiate for the sales of services by means of the signature of a Service Level Agreement. Depending on the status of the demand, the provider is able to offer higher or lower prices for maximising its profit. It is difficult to establish a profitable pricing function in competitive markets, because there are several factors that can influence in the prices. This paper deals with the problem of offering competitive prices in the negotiation of services in Cloud Computing markets. A Genetic Algorithms approach is proposed, in which a naive pricing function evolves to a pricing function that offers suitable prices in function of the system status. Its results are compared with other pricing strategies, demonstrating its validity.