Modelling Market-Based Decentralised Management Systems

A centralised approach to management of distributed systems works well when applied to relatively small-scale systems. As the scale grows, so do the problems of making appropriate system-wide decisions and co-ordinating their execution. As a result, large centrally managed systems tend to be ponderous and rigid. Devolving decision-making responsibility to local units means that locally appropriate responses to changed circumstances can be made rapidly. However, it is quite possible that local decisions in different elements of the system will interfere adversely. How does one co-ordinate local decisions in large systems without re-introducing central control and its associated problems? The decentralised approach adopted here is to craft the interactions between local decision-making elements (agents), in order that effective management of the overall system is an emergent result of repeated local decisions and interactions. The general solution to this problem is an ambitious long-term research goal. This paper presents some results that offer a way forward within a particular class of problem in which the interactions between agents can be modelled as sale and purchase of commodity items. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]