CiC RDDC: Relational Data Markets in the Cloud

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

Scientists are generating data at an unprecedented scale and rate. There is tremendous value in not only analyzing this data but also sharing it among scientists. Cloud-computing platforms are well-suited to support such sharing: They offer a single logical location for data, access to data management tools for analyzing it, and a pay-as-you-go charging mechanism. However, while cloud-computing systems offer simple pricing schemes for storage and compute resources, the economics of data sharing are poorly understood and only coarsely supported. This research is developing models and infrastructures to establish relational data markets in the cloud. These markets enable scientists to upload their data and make it publicly available in the cloud, then recoup costs by charging others for using the data. The data markets also enable scientists to share their data with direct collaborators and see the cloud costs fairly distributed among team members. The project is building a prototype system on the Windows Azure cloud to implement these data markets. This project is having impact on both cloud computing and science by introducing new pricing techniques for data sharing in the cloud. The software and technical papers resulting from this project are being disseminated through the project website (http://cloud-data-pricing.cs.washington.edu/).