Title
Dynamics of service selection and provider pricing game in heterogeneous cloud market.
Abstract
This paper studies price competition in a heterogeneous cloud market formed by public providers and a cloud broker, all of which are also known as cloud service providers (CSPs). We formulate the price competition between CSPs as a two-stage noncooperative game. In stage I, in which CSPs set their service prices to maximize their revenues, we model the pricing game using the noncooperative static game. We provide sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of Nash equilibrium prices, which can be obtained using an iterative algorithm. The convergence properties of the iterative algorithm are characterized using the contract mapping theorem. In stage II, given the prices set by CSPs, cloud users can select the services that provide them the best payoff in terms of performance (i.e., delay) and price. We apply an evolutionary game to study the evolution and dynamic behavior of cloud users. Furthermore, we use the Wardrop equilibrium and replicator dynamics to determine the equilibrium and its convergence properties of the service selection game. To attract users to the equilibrium, we implement the service selection algorithms using population evolution and reinforcement learning approaches. Numerical results illustrate that our game models can provide comprehensive understanding of the heterogeneous CSPs market and service selection in cloud computing. HighlightsA game theoretical model in a Cloud Service Provider market in which there are two stages of competition.In stage I: formulate the competition among CSPs for selling service opportunities as a noncooperative game.In stage II, a Wardrop equilibrium is achievable by cloud users in the service selection game.
Year
DOI
Venue
2016
10.1016/j.jnca.2016.04.012
J. Network and Computer Applications
Keywords
Field
DocType
Cloud computing,Pricing,Service selection,Nash equilibrium,Replicator dynamics,Evolutionary game
Mathematical optimization,Simulation,Computer science,Implementation theory,Replicator equation,Equilibrium selection,Normal-form game,Nash equilibrium,Stochastic game,Extensive-form game,Cloud computing,Distributed computing
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
69
C
1084-8045
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
9
0.49
34
Authors
6
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Cuong T. Do111610.62
Nguyen H. Tran239952.48
Eui-Nam Huh31036113.46
Choong Seon Hong42044277.88
Niyato Dusit59486547.06
Zhu Han611215760.71