Express Agent Interface

The Express agent interface is an HTML version of the Desktop interface, with some significant differences:

• It leaves your agent The program that interacts with the rest of Merkato on behalf of buyers and sellers. Buyers can acquire bandwidth The amount of data transmitted or received per unit of time. When we refer to acquiring or selling bandwidth, we mean the amount of information that can be sent over a connection at one time, at the allowed speed, without packet loss or excessive delay. Bandwidth is measured in bits-per-second. by configuring their agents to offer the price they are willing to pay for a range of available quantity, or use their agent to request a quote for a fixed-price bandwidth reservation. Sellers configure their agents with a quantity of bandwidth for sale and a minimum price they are willing to accept for that quantity. in the garage A server from which buyer and seller agents can bid when they are not actively bidding on a user's PC desktop. The garage is generally installed on the Merkato server, providing maximum performance and reliability. and controls it remotely. Should you inadvertently close this window, it will make no different to your agent in the garage.

Your screen is not updated in real time. You must click the “Refresh” button to update information in status displays.

The Express interface is meant to support advanced users who know what the fields mean and wish to have a quick way to check agent status or make configuration changes.

You access the Express interface through the initial portal The unique market mechanism by which Merkato allocates bandwidth to potential buyers at an optimal market price The price for something that buyers and sellers agree on. Merkato establishes a market price for bandwidth during each spot market auction round. There is a fixed amount for sale, so as demand increases, prices rise. The market price is reached when the cumulative demand of all the buyers is exactly equal to the amount of bandwidth being offered by the seller. . An auction is established, where each bid consists of a unit price and the quantity desired at that price. Bidders are ranked according to the unit price they offer. Bidders who get an allocation pay the unit price offered by the lowest accepted bidder. (This is the "second price" aspect of the auction.) Bidders who don't get an allocation can re-bid at a higher unit price, in an attempt to improve their ranking in the auction. (This is the "progressive" aspect of the auction.) An auction round closes when all bidders are either successful, based on their last bid, or cannot match the price offered by the current lowest successful bidder. browser window. If your agent was active and bidding from the garage, you will see a window like the one below.

The Express agent doesn’t allow the same functionality as the Desktop agent. It doesn’t support creating or canceling reservations, traffic-usage based valuations, or manual bidding. You can make these settings using the desktop agent and then make unrelated changes via the Express agent.

The two buttons at the bottom of the window control your communication with the Resource The bandwidth service that is offered through a single Merkato marketplace. It will have service attributes, an available quantity earmarked for it by the NSP, and a market mechanism for distributing bandwidth (either the spot market The Merkato mechanism by which bandwidth is traded, in a progressive second price auction. An optimal fair market price is established and bandwidth is allocated to buyers, based on their bids relative to other buyers. or reservation market The Merkato market mechanism by which a specified quantity of bandwidth, for a specific duration, is sold for a firm price specified by the seller and agreed to by the buyer. This is an automated process based on a rate sheet that the seller establishes in advance. ). agent:

• Refresh updates the configuration and status fields in the windows without sending configuration changes to the Resource Agent. Click Refresh to return the display to the last saved configuration should you wish to erase changes made to the values prior to applying them.
• Apply sends configuration changes to the Resource Agent.

To exit the Express window without sending configuration changes to the Resource Agent click Refresh. All values saved the last time changes were applied are restored.

The fields in this display are as follows (identified by their row headers):

• Status – Controls whether the agent is bidding or not. You must click Apply for this change to take effect.
• Resource – Selection list for the resource for which you are bidding. You must click Apply for this selection to take effect.
• Strategy – Auto Strategy is the only strategy supported by the Express interface. You can select Manual strategy, but there are no bid entry fields. Creation and cancellation of reservations are not currently supported (although you may view confirmed reservations in the allocation An amount of bandwidth available for your use. Depending on the type of service being offered through Merkato, this can represent the maximum bandwidth available to you or a minimum guarantee of bandwidth available to you. list just below the Express interface in the Portal).
• Current Valuation – This is display of the valuation currently in use. Choices are the same as in the Desktop interface. To change the current valuation, select another valuation from the menu and click Apply.
• Valuation View – This pull-down menu selection allows you to select and alter settings of valuations without making them active. When you are satisfied with the settings for a new valuation, click Apply. The displayed valuation becomes the active (current) one with the configuration values you have entered.
• Valuation Parameters – This set of windows contain the settings for the valuation chosen. You must click Apply after changes are made, for them to take effect. Not all parameters have meaning for all valuations. If a parameter is not used, its value is indicated as a horizontal bar.
• Bid – A read-only display indicating the latest bid submitted. You must click Refresh to update this display. If this display is missing, it indicates that your agent is inactive and not bidding.
• Allocation – A read-only display indicating the allocation received in the last round. You must click Refresh to update this display. If this display is missing, either your agent is inactive or it did not receive an allocation in the previous auction round.
• Units – The selections made in this window change the units displayed for all other windows. All values are scaled to reflect the change in units. You need not click Apply for this change to take effect.

When your agent is inactive and not bidding from the garage, the Bid and Allocation rows are missing, as shown below.

Error messages are displayed in the browser window, above the Express Interface area: