Distributed simulation

ABSTRACT

Emerging multicomputer architectures provide a platform upon which to realize substantial performance improvements in simulation. Parallel execution is the means to these improvements, yet hurdles remain: the synchronization of simulation time across multicomputer nodes and whether sufficient model parallelism can be identified to enable substantial speedup. Overcoming these obstacles will make speeding up the execution of simulations by several orders of magnitude practical. Simulation environments of the future must build on traditional object-oriented methods and the new logic program paradigms in a way which does not hide the parallelism inherent in models. Distributed operating system kernels and language run-time systems must then be able to exploit this parallelism to support concurrent execution of simulations on multicomputers. Finally, these simulation kernels must support this parallelism transparently, that is, without modification at the model source code levels. Without this transparency, models will have to be continually rewritten when moving from model development, testing, and validation on sequential hardware to parallel hardware for simulation experiments.

REFERENCES

• 1: Baezner, D., Cleary, J., Lomow, G., Unger, B.(1989) Algorithmic Optimizations of Simulations on Time Warp. submitted to Distributed Simulation, Part of the 1989 SCS Eastern Multiconference March 28-31, Tampa, Florida
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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.6 SIMULATION AND MODELING
      I.6.8 Types of Simulation
          Subjects: Distributed

Additional Classification:
  F. Theory of Computation
  F.1 COMPUTATION BY ABSTRACT DEVICES
      F.1.2 Modes of Computation
          Subjects: Parallelism and concurrency

  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.6 SIMULATION AND MODELING

General Terms:
Design, Measurement, Performance, Theory