Agora: A System for Consumption-Based GPU Pricing

Abstract

We present Agora, a lightweight system designed for cloud-based GPUs which meters a three-dimensional resource vector from commodity performance counters and prices it with a function that charges customers based on resources used rather than time spent renting. Because the calibration is revenue-neutral, any gain must come from demand the flat rate had priced out, and we report under what conditions this consumption-based pricing scheme increases revenue: we find that the switch is revenue-negative at the median on a fixed market, but provides benefits in 86 percent of cases where a provider serves 15 to 30 percent of its addressable market against 10 percent where it serves over 60 percent. Revenue expands dramatically in proportion to the number of customers priced out by the flat rate: up to 141 percent in an optimistic case.

17 pages, 4 figures