Formation of Stable and Efficient Social Storage Cloud

Pramod C. Mane, Nagarajan Krishnamurthy and Kapil Ahuja
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Pramod C. Mane: Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Indore, Indore 453552, India
Nagarajan Krishnamurthy: Operations Management and Quantitative Techniques, Indian Institute of Management Indore, Indore 453556, India
Kapil Ahuja: Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Indore, Indore 453552, India

Games, 2019, vol. 10, issue 4, 1-17

Abstract: In this paper, we study the formation of endogenous social storage cloud in a dynamic setting, where rational agents build their data backup connections strategically. We propose a degree-distance-based utility model, which is a combination of benefit and cost functions. The benefit function of an agent captures the expected benefit that the agent obtains by placing its data on others’ storage devices, given the prevailing data loss rate in the network. The cost function of an agent captures the cost that the agent incurs to maintain links in the network. With this utility function, we analyze what network is likely to evolve when agents themselves decide with whom they want to form links and with whom they do not. Further, we analyze which networks are pairwise stable and efficient. We show that for the proposed utility function, there always exists a pairwise stable network, which is also efficient. We show that all pairwise stable networks are efficient, and hence, the price of anarchy is the best that is possible. We also study the effect of link addition and deletion between a pair of agents on their, and others’, closeness and storage availability.

Keywords: network formation; pairwise stability; network externalities; social storage cloud; socially-aware storage-sharing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C C7 C70 C71 C72 C73 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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