Auctions for Resource Allocation in Overlay Networks

In recent years, many types of "Overlay" networks have been proposed for the Internet. These overlays include content delivery networks, peer-to-peer file sharing, some voice-over-IP services, and testbed networks such as PlanetLab. A particular architecture called Service Overlay Network (SON) has been proposed to deploy value-added Internet services with end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS). The basic components of the SON architecture are service gateways located in domain boundaries, and a network of tunnels acquired from the underlying domains with guaranteed bandwidth. Through this overlay, a client with good local connectivity in one domain can secure a high QoS connection with a remote domain.