Club theory of the Grid

Abstract

Grid is a new type of resource sharing and distributed infrastructure. Because of limitations of software and hardware, the service that a certain grid can offer is finite, and so is the number of users. If the number of users is too small, much of the planned resources could turn out to be wasteful; on the contrary, if there are too many users, the excessive loading could substantially reduce the benefit of each user and also the efficiency of the grid service. Therefore, the following are two central problems for grid design: 1. How many users should the grid serve so that each user can receive the maximum benefit? 2. To a certain group of users, how much resources should be invested so that the construction and maintenance the grid become viable? Based on the economic theory of clubs, this paper makes a quantitative analysis of the quasi-optimal size of the grid by regarding grid services and resources as club goods. The results are two important conclusions. We use an experiment involving GridFTP to verify the theory. © Springer-Verlag 2004.