Insurance Broker

The insurance broker, utilizing complex algorithms, analyses market trends in order to calculate the risk associated with a proposed contract for grid resource. Based on the risk factor calculated it gives the option to opt for insurance for the future contracts charging some service fee. In a scenario when due to some technical or other reasons the contract could not be materialized, the compensation claim processing is done by this component.

Workflow Engine

This component provides a centralised backbone for communications between the various existing, and future components (including the provided GUI) of the GridEcon platform. Components communicate indirectly with each other via the supplied Workflow Engine API and its ‘callback’ interfaces. Loose coupling of components in this way opens up the path for integrating new or different components into the system with configuration, only, required within the WorkFlow Engine.

Execution Engine

The Execution Engine provides a mechanism to the GridEcon system for managing lifecycle events on the cloud resources that are allocated within the Marketplace Component and that will ultimately run the user’s required application. This component handles events such as starting and stopping cloud resources when the GridEcon system demands.

History Component

The History Component serves to archive both the offers that arrive into the GridEcon system and the resulting resource allocations that are produced. This central repository for market data serves as a data source that other, ‘Value Added’, services can be developed upon.

Monitoring Component

The Monitoring Component is responsible for retrieving and collating runtime information from the various resources that have been started by the GridEcon system. This component stores this critical data within its data store and makes it available via its web services API. The existence of this data and API creates the potential for further ‘Monitoring’ components, e.g. graphical monitoring cosoles, to be developed and deployed into the GridEcon system.

GridEcon 1.0 is a fully functional, modular system that provides everything required to run the next generation of Grid resource marketplace. Adopting a modular architecture and developed using proven industry standard technologies and techniques, existing and new components are quickly and easily integrated to provide a configurable and extensible GridEcon marketplace.

The GridEcon ‘Downloads’ page provides the source and binaries required in order to build, deploy and further enhance the current version of the GridEcon system.

Each core component, available now, is described below with the technologies used to develop them listed accordingly:

The Marketplace Component

The Marketplace Component provides an ‘out-of-the-box’ implementation of a market mechanism (‘Double Auction’) that is capable of receiving offers to buy or sell resources, producing resource allocations and subsequently triggering application startup and stop on those resource allocations. Utilising a pluggable architecture, new Market mechanisms can be quickly developed, and deployed by configuration, to meet other auction/market requirements.

Supplier Component

The Supplier Component is the software package that is implemented on each resource purchased through the GridEcon marketplace. Responsible for monitoring resource and application performance, it includes a full-featured monitoring tool that monitors both the hardware (CPU, memory etc.) ,and the running software (number of writes and read operation), making this crucial data available for better resource planning and for refining other components such as the Capacity Planner.

Fixed Price Quotation Broker

This component provides additional value to the GridEcon system, making advance planning for Grid resources possible, by providing a service for buying resources in the future at a fixed price. Acting as intermediary on the marketplace, without owning any resources, this component fulfills future contracts by buying resources on behalf of the resource consumer at the time of delivery. Employing complex market analyzing algorithms, FPQB ensures that future contracts can be delivered to the user

GridEcon GUI

GridEcon provides a web GUI that allows the ‘Trader’ user to submit offers to buy and sell resources within the provided Marketplace and to view the resulting allocations in all states (Allocated, Started and Stopped). This GUI can easily be extended to provide more detailed information on the Marketplace or a new GUI could be developed, since the API (as used by the existing GUI) to interact with the GridEcon system is well defined by the WorkFlow Engine.