Negotiation Scenario

In this scenario, a service provider offers compute resources to customers that are available in a specific time frame. The compute resource service consists of a job submission service. The compute resource provider offers available compute resources via an agreement template. This sample template includes the description of the service as well as a set of options the customer can choose from. The service description contains the available compute resources and the time-frame the resources should be available.

Once a customer has filled in all its requirements it sends the offer to the resource provider. The provider then checks whether the requested service can be provisioned. In case the service can be provided it sends back a completed counter offer to the customer that in turn can now choose to create a negotiated agreement based on the offer. In case the resource provider is not able to fulfill all the requirements stated by the customer, it can also send back a counter offer indicating a service it is able to provide instead. E.g. a customer has requested 5 nodes in a given time-frame, but the resource provider could not fulfill this request at this time. Instead the provider sends back a counter offers for 5 nodes with another time-frame. The customer may now choose to accept the counter offer or to only reserve the available nodes fitting to its needs. The process of filling in all required fields of a negotiation offer can take multiple rounds.

At a later point in time, the customer may recognize that it requires more or less resources to efficiently complete its computation. In that case it may start a re-negotiation of the agreement in order to scale the resources up or down, according to its requirements.