Relative Autonomous Accounting for Peer-to-Peer Grids

Authors: Robson Santos, Alisson Andrade, Walfredo Cirne, Francisco Brasileiro, and Nazareno Andrade - Brazil

Complete Citation

• Robson Santos, Alisson Andrade, Walfredo Cirne, Francisco Brasileiro, and Nazareno Andrade. Relative autonomous accounting for peer-to-peer grids. Concurrency and Computation, 19(14), 2006.

Abstract

Here we present and evaluate relative accounting, an autonomous accounting scheme that provides accurate results even when the parties (consumer and provider) do not trust each other. Relative accounting relies on the observed relative performance amongst the parties. As such, the basic requirement to use it is that resource consumers must also be resource providers. Relative accounting is totally autonomous in the sense that it uses only local information, i.e. there is no exchange of information between the parties. This allows for the deployment of the autonomous accounting without requiring any sort of identification infrastructure, such as certificate authorities. Not requiring trust or sophisticated infrastructure makes relative accounting a perfect fit for peer-to-peer Grids, which aim to scale much further than traditional Grids by allowing free unidentified entry into the Grid. Our results show that relative accounting performs very close to a perfect accounting, whose implementation is infeasible in most systems, including those we target. Relative accounting was developed to work with OurGrid? , a peer-to-peer Grid in production since December 2004, but it can also be used in other peer-to-peer Grids.

Annotations

The authors seek a more accurate, untrusted accounting system that could be employed on the real-world Network of Favors (NoF? ), part of OurGrid? , a peer-to-peer grid. Apparently, all previous work on grid accounting assumes accounting information reported by honest resource providers.

The authors start by formulating the cost model that they wish to estimate on the grid: a function that indicates the relative speed with which a remote CPU executes a task. They then feed a simulated heterogeneous grid into a new simulator called the PublicAccountingSimulator? . A variety of scenarios are considered, including the "accounting attack" case.

Overall, the algorithm provides the best results to the peers with the best resources, as their reputation quickly increases and they gain access to more peer resources. The authors claim that this will not have a negative impact on the grid.

Related Work

• Network of Favors and OurGrid?
• Existing accounting schemes like GridBank?

-- JustinWozniak - 03 Oct 2007