Resource metering in distributed environments is notoriously difficult. In clouds, the metering technology has to be distributed by design. This paper shows that the technology used for (financial) micropayments fulfills several objectives of the new metering process once the concept of money is replaced with the concept of a resource. Like in micropayments, resource metering in clouds is often a 3-party relationship like that among cloud provider, service provider and customer. The technology proposed in this paper can be viewed both as a better alternative to traditional micropayments as well as a new way to meter resource usage in clouds.

2. .
Micropayments and Clouds
.
Micropayments are...
..
.... small payments like all pay-per-* services (-view, -read, -access)
• today micropayment systems implement strict protocols like those in
banking, credit cards, etc.
• main differences between payment and micropayment:
1. transactions have a fixed cost, which can exceed the value of micropayment itself
2. payment of 1 yen is (much) less critical than 5000 yen
3. micropayments are similar in nature to resource metering(in clouds)
M.Zhanikeev -- maratishe@gmail.com -- Coins in Cloud Drives ... for Micropayments and Resource Metering Alike -- http://bit.do/marat140620 2/12
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3. .
Visual Taxonomy
• different levels of
critical
• metering of cloud
resources is a kind of
pay-per-*
technology
.
Cloud Coin...
..
.
.. is an ecoin stored in a
cloud drive.
M.Zhanikeev -- maratishe@gmail.com -- Coins in Cloud Drives ... for Micropayments and Resource Metering Alike -- http://bit.do/marat140620 3/12
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4. .
Solutions and Cloud Applications
.
Solutions : Micropayment Bundles
..
.
Service Provider should be able to accumulate micropayments (ex: 1
transaction per 100 micropaments)
.
Solutions : Decouple Payment from Clearing
..
.
Procedures for micropayment bundling vs clearing payments are
decoupled
.
Solutions : Differentiate Security Levels
..
.Micropayments can enjoy lower security while clearing remains traditionally strict
• Why clouds? Clouds today are very poorly distributed, no
frameworks for distirbuted management of resources, distributed accounting,
etc.
M.Zhanikeev -- maratishe@gmail.com -- Coins in Cloud Drives ... for Micropayments and Resource Metering Alike -- http://bit.do/marat140620 4/12
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5. .
Solution : Visual Form
• note that the
new
micropay-
ment
(EU-CD-CP) is
outside of
the
critical
area
• security level
= degree
of accu-
mulation,
decided by
SP
M.Zhanikeev -- maratishe@gmail.com -- Coins in Cloud Drives ... for Micropayments and Resource Metering Alike -- http://bit.do/marat140620 5/12
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6. .
The Actual Cloud Coin (JSON file)
• cloud coins are
secure --
OAuth protocol
• OAuth is a 3-party
protocol, flexible
access and security
control -- better than
banking protocols
• coins themselves are
small JSON files
in own cloud drive
(GDrive, Dropbox)
.
Cloud Coin is a JSON file...
..
.
... which can be accessed by SP/CP using OAuth
tokens.
• most cloud services today use OAuth
• OAuth works with pairs of tokens, different pairs for
owner versus accessor of a file
M.Zhanikeev -- maratishe@gmail.com -- Coins in Cloud Drives ... for Micropayments and Resource Metering Alike -- http://bit.do/marat140620 6/12
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7. .
Solution : Micropayments
.
Solution
..
....accumulate payments, clear regularly
• accumulation degree is up to SP
(tradeoff with transaction cost)
• profile users to avoid fraud --
higher accumulation for reliable users
• note: coins are created by CPs, so SP
may have to support several popular
types
M.Zhanikeev -- maratishe@gmail.com -- Coins in Cloud Drives ... for Micropayments and Resource Metering Alike -- http://bit.do/marat140620 7/12
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8. .
Solution : Cloud Resources
.
Solution
..
.
...use coins as a crude metering
instrument
• crude means that precision can be
lower
• no money involved, lower
transaction cost when clearning
accumulated amounts
• metering has several forms: quotas,
accounting, billing, monitoring
M.Zhanikeev -- maratishe@gmail.com -- Coins in Cloud Drives ... for Micropayments and Resource Metering Alike -- http://bit.do/marat140620 8/12
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9. .
Transactions : Make a Coin
M.Zhanikeev -- maratishe@gmail.com -- Coins in Cloud Drives ... for Micropayments and Resource Metering Alike -- http://bit.do/marat140620 9/12
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10. .
Transactions : Micro- Payment/Metering
M.Zhanikeev -- maratishe@gmail.com -- Coins in Cloud Drives ... for Micropayments and Resource Metering Alike -- http://bit.do/marat140620 10/12
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11. .
Transactions : Clear Payment
M.Zhanikeev -- maratishe@gmail.com -- Coins in Cloud Drives ... for Micropayments and Resource Metering Alike -- http://bit.do/marat140620 11/12
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12. .
That’s all, thank you ...
M.Zhanikeev -- maratishe@gmail.com -- Coins in Cloud Drives ... for Micropayments and Resource Metering Alike -- http://bit.do/marat140620 12/12
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