The resource agent is the core of the Merkato system. The Resource agent is responsible for:

• Informing all bidders of the quantity available
• Accepting bids from active bidders
• Determining a proposed allocation of bandwidth for each bidder based on the progressive second price auction rules
• Calculating the market price
• Distributing all this information anonymously to all bidders

These actions occur during a single cycle in the bidding process. Bidders who did not receive an allocation, or whose allocation was less than they wanted, can submit another bid to improve their positions. This cycle continues until bidders are satisfied with their allocations or don’t want to bid at the current market price.

When bidding is complete the Resource agent:

• informs all bidders of the final results
• sends the bandwidth distribution information to the Network Service Provisioner (NSP) to implement the bandwidth distribution
• sends the billing information to the accounting database

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