Using the Wizard

The Wizard In Merkato, an automated series of inquiry screens that walks you through the process of creating and configuring a buyer agent. interface walks you through the steps to set up Merkato to obtain 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.. You can use the Wizard to set up bidding on the Express interface.

If you launch the Wizard from the Merkato 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 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. 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. it will configure an agent The program that interacts with the rest of Merkato on behalf of buyers and sellers. Buyers can acquire bandwidth 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..

If you start the Desktop interface and launch the Wizard, it configures the desktop interface. (This configuration is applied to your Garage agent profile when you save or upload.)

To access the Wizard from the Merkato portal, select it from the portal user interface menu, as shown below.

The Wizard takes you step-by-step through configuration of your Merkato spot-market agent. It provides detailed help on each page. You can activate the Help display by clicking the check box at the bottom of the screen, between the Next and Apply buttons).

When you reach the final screen of the Wizard, you have:

• specified the bandwidth 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 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. ). which you would like to obtain
• selected units for display of currency, bandwidth quantity, and time
• set a minimum amount of bandwidth that you would like to obtain
• set a maximum amount of bandwidth that you would like to obtain
• Set a budget that you do not want to exceed when bidding for bandwidth between your minimum and maximum thresholds

The final Wizard screen lets you confirm your choices and apply them to your agent. It gives you the option to begin bidding after it applies configuration changes are applied to your agent.

To begin obtaining bandwidth in 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. immediately, do the following:

1. Select “Apply settings and start bidding” from the pull-down list.
2. Click Apply at the bottom of the screen.

·        If you launched the Wizard from the Merkato Desktop, the Desktop agent is active and bidding.

·        If you launched the Wizard from the Merkato portal:

§         In the confirmation window, click Yes to indicate that you want to quit the Wizard and apply the settings.

§         Select “Express” from the user interface selection pull-down menu.

The configuration you set using the Wizard appears in the Express interface, shown below.

The Status in the Express interface indicates that the Agent is active, showing that the Agent is currently bidding.