Grid Business Models for Brokers Executing SLA-Based Workflows

In the Grid Computing environment, many users need the results of their calculations within a specific period of time. Those users are willing to pay for getting their work completed on time. However, this requirement must be agreed on in a Service Level Agreement (SLA) by both, the user and the Grid provider, before the application is executed. In order to finish the workflow on time, sub-jobs of the workflow must be distributed to Grid resources. To free users from assigning sub-jobs of the workflow, it is necessary to have a SLA workflow broker. We introduce a set of business models that are based on incentive structure for users to consume the HPCC services, and for brokers to perform efficiently. The business model also leads to several economic issues. In particular, there is asymmetric information regarding the execution environment. The asymmetric information may have negative effect on the business relation between the broker and the user. We will analyze this effect. We also propose some possible solutions for the asymmetric information issue. They include the pricing/fining policy of the broker and the negotiation strategy between users and brokers.