A Reputation-Based Mechanism for Dynamic Virtual Organization Formation in Grids

In order to execute large scale applications programs in grids, several Grid Service Providers (GSPs) pool their resources together by forming Virtual Organizations (VOs). Forming such VOs is a challenging problem especially when the trust relationships among GSPs have to be considered. In this paper, we model the formation of VOs in grids by considering the trust and reputation of the participating GSPs. We design a mechanism for VO formation that enables the GSPs with high reputation to organize into a VO reducing the cost of execution and guaranteeing the maximum profit for the participating GSPs. Furthermore, the mechanism guarantees that the formed VO is stable, that is, the GSPs that are part of the VO do not have incentives to break away from it. We perform extensive simulation experiments using real workload traces to characterize the properties of the proposed mechanism. The results show that the mechanism produces stable VOs composed of GSPs with high reputation that obtain high individual profits.