Tycoon is a market-based system for managing compute resources in distributed Utility Data Center (UDC). Users have a limited supply of credits, which they use to pay providing users. Users who provide resources can, in turn, swap their earnings to be used for other resources later.

This automated ecosystem allocates resources with more efficiency than standard proportional share and priority system schemes, and is orders of magnitude faster than manual provisioning and allocation.

Tycoon is currently a prototype implemented at Information Dynamics Lab (a Hewlett Packard  research facility) using Linux and Xen; a networked economy of hosts running the prototype; and a set of algorithms for doing economic resource allocation. As a result, this website has a diverse set of functionality:

• Download and Install
  • Download and install a client.
  • Download and install a resource providing host.
  • Xen installation tips.
  • Download Lightweight client that may be used on non-Fedora platforms.

• Use Tycoon
  • Setup and register an account.
  • Get started running your program.
  • Tips on running applications on Tycoon.
  • Tycoon User's Manual
  • Tycoon Grid Integration User's Manual (pdf) (tickets)

• Administer Tycoon
  • Tycoon Administrator's Manual
  • Administer the HP Labs Tycoon cluster.