Using the Express Interface

The Express 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 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. (See Note: Bidding From the Garage or From the Desktop.)
Your screen is not updated in real time. You must click Refresh to update information in status displays.
You may not create or cancel reservations through this interface. Nor can you submit manual bids or make changes to traffic-based valuation The value a buyer or seller places on bandwidth. Setting a valuation is part of setting a purchasing strategy. Valuation settings within a buyer agent let buyers specify the amount they are willing to pay for varying amounts of bandwidth. This information is used by the agent to respond to changing market conditions during a Merkato progressive second price auction. settings. (Existing settings made in these areas through the Desktop interface are not affected by using the Express interface to change other settings.)

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.

(See Express Agent.)

The Express agent is the first screen you see when you log in on the Merkato Portal The unique market mechanism by which Merkato allocates bandwidth to potential buyers at an optimal market price. 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. .

When you first log in, the window looks like the one below.

Valuation and Strategy

You must configure the Express agent to bid using an automatic strategy. (Manual is available but not supported.) An automatic strategy changes your bid continually according to your valuation settings and market conditions. It bases the bid on the 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. , your valuation parameters, and the amount it is informed it would receive if no more bids were submitted (and this auction round closed).

Use of a manual strategy (submitting each bid manually) is not supported through the Express interface, but this strategy setting will be indicated if previously configured (and uploaded) via the Desktop interface.

(See Merkato Buyers’ Reference Manual, “Strategy Overview.”)

You must also configure the Express agent with a valuation method.

Your valuation settings indicate the maximum you are willing to pay for a range of 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.. In the course of an auction, your agent uses this valuation information to determine whether to bid, how much bandwidth to ask for, and how much to offer, in response to changing market conditions.

In the Express interface, you can view and change settings for inactive or the active valuation. You do this by making a selection under the “Valuation View” pull-down menu. The valuation parameters automatically change to reflect the selected valuation. To make the new valuation active, click Apply. The “Current Valuation” display changes to the valuation currently being viewed, and the agent begins bidding using the new valuation profile and settings.

(See Merkato Buyers’ Reference Manual, “Valuations Overview.”)

Controlling the Express Agent

The Active and Inactive radio buttons at the top of the window control whether the Express agent is running.

The Refresh and Apply buttons at the bottom of the window control communication with your agent:

Refresh updates the read-only status fields in the windows without sending configuration changes to the Agent. All values saved the last time changes were applied are restored.
Apply updates the read-only status fields in the windows and sends configuration changes to the Agent.

For a complete description of fields in the Express Agent, see Merkato Buyers’ Reference Manual, “Express Agent.”

Bidding From the Express Agent

To bid for bandwidth from the Express agent, follow these steps:

Make sure 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. is selected in 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 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. ). field.
Select Auto bidding strategy in the Strategy field.
Select a valuation in the Valuation View field. (For a description of the methods of valuation, see Merkato Buyers’ Reference Manual, “Valuation Overview.”)
In the Units fields, you can make changes to money, time, or bandwidth units. Changing units doesn’t change your bid—it changes the display to show the units you choose.
In the Min Qty field, enter the Minimum bandwidth you want to buy. (A line through this field means that no entry is necessary.)
In the Max Qty field, enter the maximum bandwidth you want to buy. (A line through this field means that no entry is necessary.) If the maximum quantity is the all the seller is selling, check the Max Qty = All check box.
In the Budget/Max Value field, enter the appropriate currency per unit/time value for the valuation you selected. For budget-based valuations, this is the maximum amount of money you are willing to spend on the acceptable range of bandwidth you want to buy. For other valuations, this value is related to the maximum you are willing to spend, but does not directly correspond to it. The Merkato Buyers’ Reference Manual, “Valuation Overview” explains how to configure these details for each valuation.)
When you are satisfied with all entries, click Apply. The “Current Valuation” display changes to the Valuation View you configured.
If you want to begin bidding now, click the active radio button in the Status area.
Click Apply to begin bidding. A Bid field appears in the display, indicating the amount of your current bid. Click Refresh to update this display at any time.
In five to ten minutes, click Refresh again. 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. field appears. It displays the bandwidth you have won, and its cost, in the completed auction. Click Refresh to update this display.

Below is the Express interface, as it appears after you complete these procedures.

Viewing Historical Information

The Recent Allocation table shows bandwidth allocated to the current user and the amount charged for this bandwidth. Allocations are shown in order, most recent at the top (sorted by End Time). Each row corresponds to a single reservation (for Reservation market resources), and for an hourly roll-up of auction results (for Spot market resources). The Allocation Table indicates that Merkato auctions have been providing the desired results.

For a full description of Express agent fields, see Merkato Buyers’ Reference Manual, “Express Agent.”