A Voice Enabled Auction System in the Cloud

1. Introduction The project consists of designing and implementing a voice enabled - auction system (AS) which offers its services as SaaS to end-users who can offer items for auction and bid for items. The high level description of the system to implement is given in Section 2 while the requirements are stated in Section 3. 2. Auction System Protocol Description The Auction System (AS) resides in the cloud for scalability and elasticity purpose. The AS allows for the end-users to register. At registration time, end-users might select the option of being notified by voice when selected events happen (e.g. end-users registering /leaving, new items put on sale, items sold). Only registered end-users are allowed to offer items for auction and bid. A registered enduser can advertise many items for sale at a time. Auctions for an item are open during a specified period of time after its advertising and the broadcasting of the information to all registered end-users. An item is sold to the highest bid at the end of the specified period of time. For every item, the AS keeps informing the end-users about the current highest bid. An end-user can bid as many times as she/he wishes for an item on auction. 2.1. Registering with the AS An end-user has a unique Name. The AS has to keep this information. An end-user can always try to leave the Auction System. However, she/he can be denied deregistration if she/he is currently offering an item for auction or active in bidding for at least one item (currently leading with the highest bid for at least one item). 2.2. Offering items for auction Every registered end-user can offer items for sale. 2.3 Bidding for items An end-user can bid on any item being currently offered and can submit as many items as she/he wishes. To keep the end-users informed on every item, any change in the current highest bid is sent to all the registered end-users. When the bidding period o is over, the AS informs the winning users. If there is more than one end-user with the highest bid, the first bid to reach the AS wins. The AS also informs the end-user who is selling the item about the winner. When an item has not attracted a single valid bid, the AS restarts the bidding process for another period of time. This can be repeated until an end-user makes a winning bid.