Trust and Fairness Management in P2P and Grid Systems

Abstract

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) and Grid systems serve whole communities of users, and are thus good examples of information systems that should realize social goals. One of the most important social goals is fairness. For that reason, P2P and Grid systems incorporate many mechanisms, algorithms and methods for providing fairness that are referred to as Fairness Management in this chapter. Information systems that serve communities of users can also apply social concepts to support users. Trust is one such concept that is often applied in P2P and Grid systems that apply Trust Management to support users in making decisions under uncertainty that is due to other users’ behavior. This chapter describes Trust Management and Fairness Management in P2P and Grid systems, showing that the two subjects are connected. Trust Management can be used to improve fairness without centralized control. The chapter includes a demonstration of fairness emergence due to trust management.