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.
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.
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.
Bumping occurs when a user logs in using the ID and password of an active agent. The user who is logging-in sees a message that an agent with this login ID is already active. If the new user procedes, the old user is disconnected. The agent uses the saved configuration of the agent, not necessarily the configuration of the previously active agent.
The program that interacts with the rest of Merkato on behalf of buyers. Buyers can acquire bandwidth by configuring their agents with the price they are willing to pay for a range of bandwidth (on the spot market), or with a time-frame and desired quantity (on the reservation market). In a Merkato auction, Buyer agents signal what they are willing to pay for bandwidth in the form of bids, consisting of a unit price and a quantity.
In the Merkato interface, the term capacity refers to the total amount of bandwidth available from the Seller.
Attributes of a marketplace that specify how traffic is handled through allocated bandwidth. These settings are in addition to the traffic control profile.
The speed at which data is transferred from one port to another. See Kbps, Mbps, and Gbps.
The Merkato application for buyers or sellers that runs on a Windows PC. Merkato desktop agents bid for bandwidth from the user's PC using a Java-based application. Alternatively, Merkato agents can run as an application on a server, called the \"Garage.\" Users can interact with these remote agents through an HTML browser interface.
A network router or switch.
The Merkato HTTP application for buyers or sellers that configures and obtains status from Merkato agents running from a remote location. Accessing the agent in this way is an alternative to bringing the agent to the user's desktop and using the Java-based interface. The Express agent is accessible through the Portal.
The lowest price the seller will accept for bandwidth. The seller can establish the floor price through the Seller agent.
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.
One of the ways of expressing units of bandwidth; Gigabits-per-second (1,000,000,000 bits-per-second).
A programming language, useful for internet and networking applications. The environment used for the Merkato Desktop Interface.
One of the ways of expressing units of bandwidth-kilobits-per-second (1,000 bits-per-second).
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.
The actual bandwidth that is offered for sale in Merkato. It contains Quality-of-Service attributes and is associated with a particular port on a particular router. Merkato resource agents request a portion of the bandwidth available through a service and sell that portion through their marketplace.
One of the ways of expressing units of bandwidth-Megabits-per-second (1,000,000 bits-per-second).
InvisibleHand's software platform, which dynamically prices, sells, and allocates IP bandwidth in real time. Merkato means \"market\" in Esperanto.
The Merkato desktop is the first window that appears when the user begins to bring the Merkato buyer or seller agent to their desktop. It lets users specify which Merkato agent or agents they want to download to the desktop.
The network device you are configuring: networked routers and switches.
A buyer or seller in the Merkato auction.
The main access point to all Merkato applications. It is an HTML-based interface accessible from a standard web browser.successful bidder.
The Progressive Second Price auction: 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.
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.
A buyer agent connected to the reservation market.
The bandwidth service that is offered through a single Merkato marketplace. It will have service attributes, an available quantity earmarked for it by the NSC, and a market mechanism for distributing bandwidth (either the spot market or reservation market).
The Merkato application that offers a portion of a service on the network device to the Merkato marketplace, via one of the Merkato market mechanisms (spot or reservation).
The program that interacts with the rest of Merkato on behalf of sellers. Sellers configure their agents with a quantity of bandwidth capacity for sale and a minimum price for that quantity. Buyer agents then express what they are willing to pay for bandwidth in the form of bids, consisting of a unit price and a quantity. Currently, there is no seller agent for the reservation market, but one will be supported in a future release.
A traffic control profile applied to a specific port on a device with constraints defined.
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.
A Buyer agent or Seller agent connected to a spot market. There are also reservation agents (for buyers only).
A template that defines how packets are handled within the network device. When a service specification is assigned to a particular router port and modified with \"constraints\" identifying how the router will interact with specialized traffic, it becomes a \"service,\" which is available to Merkato resource agents.
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.
In Merkato, an automated series of inquiry screens that walks you through the process of creating and configuring a buyer agent.