Consider a set of users sharing an ATM node that offers two types of resources, bandwidth and buffer, in two flavors, guaranteed or fixed resources and variable resources. The amounts of variable resources available to the users fluctuate randomly. Each user is allocated certain amounts of fixed and variable bandwidth and buffer. Periodically the users renegotiate their allocation to adapt to changes in network conditions or their own utility functions. The network sets prices for these resources and the users choose allocations that maximize their own benefits in that period, utility minus the resource cost. In this paper we present a simple model to study this resource renegotiation problem. We exhibit some interesting properties of the equilibrium prices and allocations that result from interaction of these users. Under the assumption that the users' utility depends on the amounts of available resources only through their mean and variance, every user will hold strictly positive amounts of variable bandwidth and buffer in equilibrium. We discuss how to exploit these properties to design resource renegotiation strategies.

Date Published: 10 October 1997
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 3231, Performance and Control of Network Systems, (10 October 1997); doi: 10.1117/12.290422

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3231:
Performance and Control of Network Systems
Wai Sum Lai; Hisashi Kobayashi, Editor(s)