Analysis of Topographical Leverage-Driven Capacity Trading in Internet Storage Infrastructures

Abstract

With the rapid growth of rich-media content over the Internet, content and service providers (SP) are increasingly facing the problem of managing their service resources cost-effectively while ensuring a high Quality of Service (QoS) delivery at the same time. To address this problem, we consider a model where infrastructure resources are traded, cooperatively shared and accessed through coordination mechanisms. In this research, we conceptualize and model an economy of Internet based storage provisioning for rich-media content delivery. This is modeled as a Capacity Provision Network (CPN) where participants possess service infrastructures and leverage their topographies to effectively serve specific customer segments. A CPN is a network of SPs coordinated through an allocation hub. We first develop the notion of discounted QoS capabilities of storage resources. We then develop a market maker mechanism for optimal multilateral allocation in a network. The proposed CPN is closely tied to two fundamental properties of Internet service technology: positive network externality among cooperating SPs and the convexity property of capacity allocation with geographically distributed service sites. In conclusion, this study demonstrates the practical business viability of a cooperative CPN market.

Keywords: Capacity Provision Network, Quality of Service, Market Maker mechanism, Optimization