Title: Game theoretical approach for a fair and effective pricing strategy in cloud computing

Authors: Abdelkarim Ait Temghart; Driss Ait Omar; Mohamed Baslam; Mbarek Marwan

Addresses: TIAD Laboratory, FST, Sultan Moulay Slimane University, Beni Mellal, 523, Morocco ' TIAD Laboratory, FST, Sultan Moulay Slimane University, Beni Mellal, 523, Morocco ' TIAD Laboratory, FST, Sultan Moulay Slimane University, Beni Mellal, 523, Morocco ' LTI Laboratory, ENSA, Chouaib Doukkali University, El Jadida, 1166, Morocco

Abstract: The most proven pricing models for the healthy competition are based on game theory techniques that ensure equal consideration of interests for both clients and providers. However, user's preferences and price's sensitivity have a direct influence on the acceptance of new services, an issue that has been relatively neglected by previous research in this area. Thus, we formulate a mathematical model that takes into consideration users' behaviour and at the same time increases the marginal profit. The objective of this work is to improve the revenue for cloud providers as well as users' satisfaction. Experimental results show that the proposed approach is an optimal solution to obtain a reasonable price strategy in a competitive cloud market. More importantly, client's satisfaction has a considerable influence on pricing policy and the expected payoff. In this context, cloud providers compete with each other to maximise their expected utility even when they offer services at a reasonable price.

Keywords: cloud computing; game theory; Nash equilibrium; non-cooperative game; duopoly market; price competition; consumer's preference; price's sensitivity; profit margin.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHPSA.2021.115512

International Journal of High Performance Systems Architecture, 2021 Vol.10 No.1, pp.43 - 55

Received: 23 Jun 2020
Accepted: 26 Dec 2020
Published online: 07 Jun 2021 *