JointCloud Resource Market Competition: A Game-Theoretic Approach

The current global economy is undergoing a transformative phase, emphasizing collaboration among multiple competing entities rather than monopolization. Economic globalization is accelerating the adoption of globalized cloud services, and in line with this trend, cloud 2.0 introduces the concept of “cloud cooperation”. JointCloud, as a novel computing model for Cloud 2.0, advocates for the establishment of an evolving cloud ecosystem. However, a critical challenge arises due to the lack of direct incentives for a cloud to join the JointCloud ecosystem, leading to uncertainty regarding the rationale for the existence of the JointCloud ecosystem. To address this ambiguity, we draw inspiration from supply chain competition and formulate the market dynamics of resources within the JointCloud ecosystem. Our focus is particularly on the analysis of data resource trade within the JointCloud market. To comprehensively analyze the JointCloud market, we propose a market game that examines the competition among clouds within the ecosystem. We theoretically prove that a Nash Equilibrium always exists under the JointCloud market. Subsequently, we conduct an in-depth analysis of the profits of cloud resource manufacturers and cloud resource retailers as the number of clouds varies within the JointCloud ecosystem. Based on our analysis, we further explore the incentives for a cloud to participate in the JointCloud ecosystem. We then evaluate the performance of the proposed market game through extensive experiments, illustrating how process variables and profits change with the market size. The experiments demonstrate that the trends of various variables are aligned with our analysis obtained from the market game. Compared with the Cournot model, our proposed model captures the market power of both manufacturers and retailers, resulting in a model that closely mirrors real market dynamics. Our findings provide valuable insights into the cloud market within Cloud 2.0, offering guidance for stakeholders navigating the evolving landscape of cloud cooperation and competition.