N. Kasap; "Vendor Selection and Task Allocation Strategies in..."

“Vendor Selection and Task Allocation Strategies in Telecommunication Networks with Different QoS Levels and All You Can Send Pricing”

by

Asst. Prof. Nihat Kasap
 

GSM, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey

 

Abstract:  Firms are increasingly dependent on data networks to complete day-to-day operations such as video conferencing, voice over TCP/IP and data applications. In general, a firm performs two types of tasks, time-fixed and size-fixed, and these tasks might have to be completed using data networks with different quality of service (QoS) levels and pricing. Firms acquire capacity in the marketplace from multiple suppliers at competitive prices. We show that the demands each type of task imposes on the network and a provider’s ability to meet these demands can be quite different.We investigate customers’ optimal behavior when there are quality related costs in addition to cost of acquisition while using networks with bandwidth and QoS constraints. We focus on vendor selection and task allocation strategies subject to QoS requirements with different pricing scenarios.

Customers’ strategy will vary based on the charging schemes offered by the suppliers in the marketplace. Given the opportunity, the customer will mix and match resources to optimize its position. We formulate the associated problem as a cost minimization problem, that reflects a trade off between cost of acquiring resources and the opportunity cost of degradation in perceived quality, subject to QoS and capacity requirements and offer multiple solutions.  We show that the problem with all-you-can-send pricing where supplier charges a fixed price for a specific bandwidth and duration is at least as hard as the two dimensional bin packing problem (2D-BPP) and suggest a heuristic that can take advantage of the trade-off between quality related costs and capacity costs. Experiments show how different prices, quality and task distribution affect the optimal behavior of the firm. We also discuss how Bender’s Decomposition can solve a relaxation of this problem.

Biography Nihat Kasap received his B.S. degree from Middle East Technical University in July1994 majoring in Civil Engineering. He received his M.S. degree in Computer Engineering and then Ph.D. degree in Decision and Information Sciences in University of Florida in August 2000 and August 2004 respectively. His research interests include pricing and quality of service in telecommunication networks, data mining, heuristic design and optimization, E-commerce and IS economics. He is a member of AIS, INFORMS and DSI.

March 09, 2005

Place: FENS, L030

 

Time: 13:40 – 14:30