A classification of autonomous bilateral cloud SLA negotiation strategies

Abstract

Currently digital markets emerge where cloud resources are traded in the form of computational services. Usually the so called supermarket approach is applied on these service markets, where consumers buy offered services from providers based on fixed functional and non-functional characteristics without negotiations. However, bilateral multi round negotiation, which allows to customize the traded services, is considered as a promising improvement to the static supermarket approach aiming for higher market efficiency. In this paper we introduce a novel generic service market ecosystem from which requirements for bilateral negotiation strategies are derived. Evaluating a survey on published bilateral negotiation strategies along these requirements shows that important market elements are not considered in current research. Most of the published bilateral negotiation strategies are focusing on a single negotiation phases only neglecting the complete negotiation process. Hence we classify the identified strategies along the different phases of the generic negotiation process. Based on our analysis we identify two different groups in their scientific approach: One group assumes complete information during bilateral negotiations while the other group assumes incomplete information.