Cloud computing takes away much of the need to plan future IT demands from the\r\nconsumer, and puts it in the hands of the provider. Consumers donââ?¬â?¢t need to give\r\nadvance notice to start or terminate virtual machines, and can do so in real time to\r\nreflect changing business objectives. It is the task of the cloud IaaS provider to\r\noptimise the use of her infrastructure, and ensure there are enough resources\r\navailable. Achieving optimum server utilisation in the data centre is particularly\r\nchallenging ââ?¬â?? advance notification can help the provider to schedule workloads\r\nmore efficiently, but this is at odds with one of the key benefits of cloud computing.\r\nIn this paper, we propose a pricing method that combines options contracts with\r\non-demand purchasing. We show that the method can provide consumers with the\r\nflexibility and cost-benefits afforded by cloud computing, and can benefit the\r\nprovider by improving server utilisation and therefore reducing energy costs.\r\nFurthermore, we show how provision-point contracts, often used by deal-of-the-day\r\nwebsites such as Groupon, can further improve the method, making it even more\r\nattractive to the provider.
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