A Foundation of Demand-Side Resource Management in Distributed Systems

Abstract. The theoretical problems of demand-side management are examined in without regard to the type of resource whose demand is to be managed, and the Maximum Demand problem is identified and addressed in a system consisting of independent processes that consume the resource. It is shown that the Maximum Demand problem generalizes the Santa Fe Bar Problem of game theory, and the basic properties of Maintenance and Strong and Weak Recovery that are desirable of systems of processes where demand management is practiced are defined. Basic algorithms are given for solving the Maximum Demand problem in a general context, and in a system where the processes have priorities.