Tit-for-Tat Distributed Resource Allocation

Distributed computing infrastructures have risen in popularity over the past decade, however resource allocation on these—largely federated—systems remains a practically unsolved problem. Previous attempts have either relied upon central management of resources, which is infeasible in a federated model, and market-based economies which we classify into systems using global, transferable currency and systems using local, transferable currency. We present an alternate approach which represents pair-wise, tit-for-tat relationships as local, non-transferable currency. This approach promises to provide a solution that does not require a globally trusted third party and is easier to deploy and maintain than previous systems.