Choosing an Interface

You can chose from among three interfaces to get information and handle transactions. The User Interface menu lets you make the choice.

• The Desktop interface allows you to purchase bandwidth through a series of user-selectable windows. Your agent is brought to your PC and bids on your behalf from there. On the desktop, monitoring features let you watch the Merkato auction in real time.
• The Express interface lets you get status information from—and send configuration information to—an agent in the Garage. The Express interface is at the top of the Portal page when you log in. The Express interface is considered advanced because the fields are less interactive, less annotated, and less graphical than the Java-based Merkato Desktop interface. Note that the Express interface does not support creation or cancellation of reservations.
• The Wizard walks you through the steps for setting up your Merkato agent to obtain bandwidth through the Spot market. The settings are automatically transferred to your agent. Changes made through the Wizard are applied to both the Desktop and Express agents. You can later change the settings from the agent interfaces, or return to the Wizard and make changes there.

When you first log in, the Express interface appears in the browser window.

We recommended that you start with the Wizard interface to make basic buying choices. When you become more advanced in your use of Merkato you can make further changes on the Desktop interface. The Desktop interface also gives you the most detailed status information. As you become more proficient with Merkato, you may want to use the Express interface to make quick configuration changes and status checks without downloading your agent to your PC.