Dynamic Resource Allocation: A Comparison of First Price Sealed Bid and Vickrey Auctions

Abstract

Resource allocation involves assigning the resources to the resource users. Where the resources and the resource users do not change with time, the resource allocation problem can be solved as a scheduling problem. Where the resources and the resource users change with time then some different allocation mechanisms are needed. In this paper an environment is considered in which the resources emerge and the resource requests also emerge unpredictably as time goes. The resources emerge with different capacities and in the same way the resource requests also emerge from the users with different demands as time goes. In this dynamic environment the resource allocation performance of the first price sealed bid and the Vickrey auctions are explored and compared. The system allocation performance is measured using the number of the emerging resource provisions and the resource requests that get matched. The simulation results show that there is no performance difference between the two mechanisms apart from the fact that the Auctioneer’s earnings are higher for the first price sealed bid auction.