Jörn Kün­semöl­ler

Project Outline

Tragedy of the Common Cloud. Cloud Computing and Social Interaction

Internet access has heavily grown in bandwidth and reliability over the last years. As charges dropped at the same time, making heavy use more attractive, it doesn’t amaze to see enterprises seeking for ways to tweak their IT via the web. Assuming that batch processing similar tasks is more economic, outsourcing those tasks of data processing or storage to processing hubs which serve several sites or corporations becomes an option. Within the meaning of service oriented architecture, this might be organized in specific services which a processing facility provides and a customer may utilize under stated terms and billing. This has become known as cloud computing.

In contrast to the often huge monetary benefits of computation in the cloud, there are security and privacy concerns that avert this action in many cases. Arguments for and against offering and using cloud services under certain conditions are central topics of the thesis, which aims at an estimation of the prospective market formation. Question is, if the current run for cloud computing is an ongoing and dominating development or is heading for the fringes. Reasons for monopoly positioning versus a brisk heterogenous market, shaped by different service qualities, are to be balanced. Consistency of the several proprietary standards in existence and a liability to converge to a commonly used single standard are of interest. The thesis shall identify key factors that have huge impact on the outcome and might be used to exert influence on the progress. Different stack models for standardization may also be inquired in this regard.

As the questions stated above are determined by market dynamics, i.e. interaction of several actors (which might be vendors, customers, competitors, ...), there is need for a theoretical approach capable of providing solutions for such situations. Game theory seems to be suitable to meet this requirement and can be used for manifold problems. Given that it’s hardly possible to model the cloud market and all of it’s characteristics at once, several models which seem convenient to discuss a specific question at a time are set up. The data base is collected in field and literature study. Results of the analysis are referred to game theoretic research on outsourcing and similar fields.

Jörn Künsemöller
Graduiertenkolleg Automatismen
Universität Paderborn
Warburger Str. 100
33098 Paderborn

E-Mail: jkuensem[at]mail.uni-paderborn.de