Applying a market mechanism to optimizing the utilization of computing resources

Large enterprises possess massive quantities of computing systems. The costs of running and managing these systems, and capital investments for new hardware, are significant. Optimizing the utilization of those computing systems can produce significant savings for the enterprise. However, the optimization in a multinational, multi-divisional, multi-geographic enterprise is complicated by the large scale of business usage purposes and the heterogeneity of the systems. This paper proposes a solution by introducing a market-like environment for directing workload migration from less efficient systems to more efficient systems. Migration sources and targets are treated as sellers and buyers in a transaction in this environment, and a Computing Environment Entitlement Contract (CEEC) is used as the unit of trade. A Market Maker is also introduced to ensure that matched buyers and sellers complete the transaction.