A Truthful Load Balancing Mechanism with Verification

In this paper we investigate the problem of designing load balancing protocols in distributed systems involving self-interested participants. These participants have their own requirements and objectives and no a-priori motivation for cooperation. Their selfish behavior may lead to poor performance and inefficiency. To address this problem we design a load balancing mechanism with verification that provides incentives to participants to report their true parameters and follow the given algorithm. We prove that our load balancing mechanism is truthful (i.e., agents will be better off by reporting their true parameters) and satisfies the voluntary participation condition (i.e., truthful agents never incur a loss). We present a simulation study to show the performance of our load balancing mechanism.