GAF: A General Auction Framework for Secure Combinatorial Auctions

<p>Auctions are an economic mechanism for allocating goods to interested parties. There are many methods, each of which is an Auction Protocol. Some protocols are relatively simple such as English and Dutch auctions, but there are also more complicated auctions, for example combinatorial auctions which sell multiple goods at a time, and secure auctions which incorporate security solutions. Corresponding to the large number of protocols, there is a variety of purposes for which protocols are used. Each protocol has different properties and they differ between how applicable they are to a particular domain. In this thesis, the protocols explored are privacy preserving secure combinatorial auctions which are particularly well suited to our target domain of computational grid system resource allocation. In grid resource allocation systems, goods are best sold in sets as bidders value different sets of goods differently. For example, when purchasing CPU cycles, memory is also required but a bidder may additionally require network bandwidth. In untrusted distributed systems such as a publicly accessible grid, security properties are paramount. The type of secure combinatorial auction protocols explored in this thesis are privacy preserving protocols which hide the bid values of losing bidder’s bids. These protocols allow bidders to place bids without fear of private information being leaked. With the large number of permutations of different protocols and configurations, it is difficult to manage the idiosyncrasies of many different protocol implementations within an individual application. This thesis proposes a specification, design, and implementation for a General Auction Framework (GAF). GAF provides a consistent method of implementing different types of auction protocols from the standard English auction through to the more complicated combinatorial and secure auctions. The benefit of using GAF is the ability to easily leverage multiple protocols within a single application due to the consistent specification of protocol construction. The framework has be tested with three different protocols: the Secure Polynomial auction protocol, the Secure Homomorphic auction protocol and the Secure Garbled Circuits auction protocol. These three protocols and a statistics collecting application is a proof of concept for the framework and provides the beginning of an analysis designed at determining suitable protocol candidates for grid systems.</p>

GAF: A General Auction Framework for Secure Combinatorial Auctions

<p>Auctions are an economic mechanism for allocating goods to interested parties. There are many methods, each of which is an Auction Protocol. Some protocols are relatively simple such as English and Dutch auctions, but there are also more complicated auctions, for example combinatorial auctions which sell multiple goods at a time, and secure auctions which incorporate security solutions. Corresponding to the large number of protocols, there is a variety of purposes for which protocols are used. Each protocol has different properties and they differ between how applicable they are to a particular domain. In this thesis, the protocols explored are privacy preserving secure combinatorial auctions which are particularly well suited to our target domain of computational grid system resource allocation. In grid resource allocation systems, goods are best sold in sets as bidders value different sets of goods differently. For example, when purchasing CPU cycles, memory is also required but a bidder may additionally require network bandwidth. In untrusted distributed systems such as a publicly accessible grid, security properties are paramount. The type of secure combinatorial auction protocols explored in this thesis are privacy preserving protocols which hide the bid values of losing bidder’s bids. These protocols allow bidders to place bids without fear of private information being leaked. With the large number of permutations of different protocols and configurations, it is difficult to manage the idiosyncrasies of many different protocol implementations within an individual application. This thesis proposes a specification, design, and implementation for a General Auction Framework (GAF). GAF provides a consistent method of implementing different types of auction protocols from the standard English auction through to the more complicated combinatorial and secure auctions. The benefit of using GAF is the ability to easily leverage multiple protocols within a single application due to the consistent specification of protocol construction. The framework has be tested with three different protocols: the Secure Polynomial auction protocol, the Secure Homomorphic auction protocol and the Secure Garbled Circuits auction protocol. These three protocols and a statistics collecting application is a proof of concept for the framework and provides the beginning of an analysis designed at determining suitable protocol candidates for grid systems.</p>

Seasonal Challenges for a Zero-Carbon Grid in California

<div><div><div><p>Today resource adequacy is most often maintained by installing natural gas plants to meet the peak load. In California, the current risk of inadequate electricity supply is highest around sunset in late summer. In a zero-carbon grid, resource adequacy will increasingly require adequate stored energy throughout the entire year. Here we seek to develop an intuition about the times of the year when resource adequacy may be most challenged for a solar-dominant system. We use a simplified approach and show that the month of the biggest challenge occurs in winter and can shift by more than two months depending on the amount of solar and storage that are built.</p></div></div></div>

Seasonal Challenges for a Zero-Carbon Grid in California

<div><div><div><p>Today resource adequacy is most often maintained by installing natural gas plants to meet the peak load. In California, the current risk of inadequate electricity supply is highest around sunset in late summer. In a zero-carbon grid, resource adequacy will increasingly require adequate stored energy throughout the entire year. Here we seek to develop an intuition about the times of the year when resource adequacy may be most challenged for a solar-dominant system. We use a simplified approach and show that the month of the biggest challenge occurs in winter and can shift by more than two months depending on the amount of solar and storage that are built.</p></div></div></div>

A Planning Tool for Reliability Assessment of Overhead Distribution Lines in Hybrid AC/DC Grids

Integration of DC grids into AC networks will realize hybrid AC/DC grids, a new energetic paradigm which will become widespread in the future due to the increasing availability of DC-based generators, loads and storage systems. Furthermore, the huge connection of intermittent renewable sources to distribution grids could cause security and congestion issues affecting line behaviour and reliability performance. This paper aims to propose a planning tool for congestion forecasting and reliability assessment of overhead distribution lines. The tool inputs consist of a single line diagram of a real or synthetic grid and a set of 24-h forecasting time series concerning climatic conditions and grid resource operative profiles. The developed approach aims to avoid congestions criticalities, taking advantage of optimal active power dispatching among “congestion-nearby resources”. A case study is analysed to validate the implemented control strategy considering a modified IEEE 14-Bus System with introduction of renewables. The tool also implements reliability prediction formulas to calculate an overhead line reliability function in congested and congestions-avoided conditions. A quantitative evaluation underlines the reliability performance achievable after the congestion strategy action.

Web service-based grid resource discovery

This thesis proposes a single and scalable web-based model for grid resource discovery for the Internet. The proposed resource discovery model contains the metadata and resource finder web services. The information of resource finder web services is kept in the repositories that are distributed in the application layer of [sic] Internet. The resource finder web services will be discovered by sending queries to the repositories in a similar way as the DNS protocol. The underlying technology for implementation of the two architectures of this model is introduced.

Web service-based grid resource discovery

This thesis proposes a single and scalable web-based model for grid resource discovery for the Internet. The proposed resource discovery model contains the metadata and resource finder web services. The information of resource finder web services is kept in the repositories that are distributed in the application layer of [sic] Internet. The resource finder web services will be discovered by sending queries to the repositories in a similar way as the DNS protocol. The underlying technology for implementation of the two architectures of this model is introduced.

Combinatorial Double Auction Based Meta-scheduler for Medical Image Analysis Application in Grid Environment

Background: Medical image analysis application has complex resource requirement. Scheduling Medical image analysis application is the complex task to the grid resources. It is necessary to develop a new model to improve the breast cancer screening process. Proposed novel Meta scheduler algorithm allocate the image analyse applications to the local schedulers and local scheduler submit the job to the grid node which analyses the medical image and generates the result sent back to Meta scheduler. Meta schedulers are distinct from the local scheduler. Meta scheduler and local scheduler have the aim at resource allocation and management. Objective: The main objective of the CDAM meta-scheduler is to maximize the number of jobs accepted. Methods: In the beginning, the user sends jobs with the deadline to the global grid resource broker. Resource providers sent information about the available resources connected in the network at a fixed interval of time to the global grid resource broker, the information such as valuation of the resource and number of an available free resource. CDAM requests the global grid resource broker for available resources details and user jobs. After receiving the information from the global grid resource broker, it matches the job with the resources. CDAM sends jobs to the local scheduler and local scheduler schedule the job to the local grid site. Local grid site executes the jobs and sends the result back to the CDAM. Success full completion of the job status and resource status are updated into the auction history database. CDAM collect the result from all local grid site and return to the grid users. Results: The CDAM was simulated using grid simulator. Number of jobs increases then the percentage of the jobs accepted also decrease due to the scarcity of resources. CDAM is providing 2% to 5% better result than Fair share Meta scheduling algorithm. CDAM algorithm bid density value is generated based on the user requirement and user history and ask value is generated from the resource details. Users who, having the most significant deadline are generated the highest bid value, grid resource which is having the fastest processor are generated lowest ask value. The highest bid is assigned to the lowest Ask it means that the user who is having the most significant deadline is assigned to the grid resource which is having the fastest processor. The deadline represents a time by which the user requires the result. The user can define the deadline by which the results are needed, and the CDAM will try to find the fastest resource available in order to meet the user-defined deadline. If the scheduler detects that the tasks cannot be completed before the deadline, then the scheduler abandons the current resource, tries to select the next fastest resource and tries until the completion of application meets the deadline. CDAM is providing 25% better result than grid way Meta scheduler this is because grid way Meta scheduler allocate jobs to the resource based on the first come first served policy. Conclusion: The proposed CDAM model was validated through simulation and was evaluated based on jobs accepted. The experimental results clearly show that the CDAM model maximizes the number of jobs accepted than conventional Meta scheduler. We conclude that a CDAM is highly effective meta-scheduler systems and can be used for an extraordinary situation where jobs have a combinatorial requirement.