On the Spot market, bandwidth is distributed by a system that ranks bidders by the price they offer, but charges them based on the price offered by the highest bidder who bids too low to win an allocation of bandwidth. If you bid too low in an auction you will be out-bid by other buyers.
The bidding process can be automated and run continuously without your intervention.
The Spot market lets you get allocations of bandwidth to be used immediately; it provides bandwidth-on-demand. The changes you make to your agent’s bidding profile take effect immediately and a resulting allocation will be granted in less than five minutes¾at the close of the auction in progress. You may start or stop bidding at any time.
Note: Bidding From the Garage or From the DesktopAlthough the auction allocation process runs continuously, there is no need for you to be directly involved at all times. Your agent can bid automatically for you after you configure it with figures indicating the value you place on bandwidth. Your agent and the seller’s agent interact on the Merkato server while their configurations are stored in the Garage. Once you configure your agent, you can either bid from your PC using a Java-based application, or communicate remotely with your agent as it bids from the Garage. Bidding from your PC and operating a remote agent each has advantages. On your PC, the Merkato desktop display gives you real-time information about the auction and its participants. If you are not interacting with the agent, you can configure it and upload it to the Garage. It will continue to run, and you avoid the chance of ceasing to bid if your PC crashes or you have network connectivity problems. |