Performance Model for a Conservative Distributed Simulation Environment Using Null Messages to Avoid Deadlock

A conservative distributed simulation requires all logical processes (LPs) to follow the causality constraint requirement. This implies that all event-messages are processed in strictly timestamp order. Apart from the timestamp of each event generated by LPs, synchronization between all LPs is the second most important requirements. Finally, there must not be a deadlock in the distributed environment. A deadlock may occur when there is no events present in the queue of LP. In such case, to avoid deadlock, Chandy-Misra-Bryant presented an algorithm called Null Message Algorithm (NMA) [3]. These null messages are passed as an event-message to other LPs and it stored in one of queues of LPs. This null message indicates that till the time stamp of that null message, all other events in the queue which have lesser time stamp than null message’s time stamp are safe to process. It means that there won’t be any arrival of any events from that logical process until current simulation time is equal to the time stamp of the null message. With the time stamp of the null message, a Lookahead value is added to the time stamp of that null message. This Lookahead value can be measure on certain kind of parameters such as delay to transmit a message, propagation delay, etc. therefore, calculating value of Lookahead is the most important part as Lookahead value affects the performance of the conservative distributed event simulation. Proper value of Lookahead can reduce the number of null messages which decreases the traffic of the network. In this paper, we demonstrate some calculation on the Lookahead which shows the performance of the distributed event simulation

Identifying and Harnessing Concurrency for Parallel and Distributed Network Simulation

Although computer networks are inherently parallel systems, the parallel execution of network simulations on interconnected processors frequently yields only limited benefits. In this thesis, methods are proposed to estimate and understand the parallelization potential of network simulations. Further, mechanisms and architectures for exploiting the massively parallel processing resources of modern graphics cards to accelerate network simulations are proposed and evaluated

Identifying and Harnessing Concurrency for Parallel and Distributed Network Simulation

Although computer networks are inherently parallel systems, the parallel execution of network simulations on interconnected processors frequently yields only limited benefits. In this thesis, methods are proposed to estimate and understand the parallelization potential of network simulations. Further, mechanisms and architectures for exploiting the massively parallel processing resources of modern graphics cards to accelerate network simulations are proposed and evaluated

On improving the performance of optimistic distributed simulations

This report investigates means of improving the performance of optimistic distributed simulations without affecting the simulation accuracy. We argue that existing clustering algorithms are not adequate for application in distributed simulations, and outline some characteristics of an ideal algorithm that could be applied in this field. This report is structured as follows. We start by introducing the area of distributed simulation. Following a comparison of the dominant protocols used in distributed simulation, we elaborate on the current approaches of improving the simulation performance, using computation efficient techniques, exploiting the hardware configuration of processors, optimizations that can be derived from the simulation scenario, etc. We introduce the core characteristics of clustering approaches and argue that these cannot be applied in real-life distributed simulation problems. We present a typical distributed simulation setting and elaborate on the reasons that existing clustering approaches are not expected to improve the performance of a distributed simulation. We introduce a prototype distributed simulation platform that has been developed in the scope of this research, focusing on the area of emergency response and specifically building evacuation. We continue by outlining our current work on this issue, and finally, we end this report by outlining next actions which could be made in this field

Identifying and Harnessing Concurrency for Parallel and Distributed Network Simulation

Although computer networks are inherently parallel systems, the parallel execution of network simulations on interconnected processors frequently yields only limited benefits. In this thesis, methods are proposed to estimate and understand the parallelization potential of network simulations. Further, mechanisms and architectures for exploiting the massively parallel processing resources of modern graphics cards to accelerate network simulations are proposed and evaluated

Migrating to a real-time distributed parallel simulator architecture

The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) currently requires a system of systems simulation capability for supporting the different phases of a Ground Based Air Defence System (GBADS) acquisition program. A non-distributed, fast-as-possible simulator and its architectural predecessors developed by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) was able to provide the required capability during the concept and definition phases of the acquisition life cycle. The non-distributed simulator implements a 100Hz logical time Discrete Time System Specification (DTSS) in support of the existing models. However, real-time simulation execution has become a prioritised requirement to support the development phase of the acquisition life cycle. This dissertation is about the ongoing migration of the non-distributed simulator to a practical simulation architecture that supports the real-time requirement. The simulator simulates a synthetic environment inhabited by interacting GBAD systems and hostile airborne targets. The non-distributed simulator was parallelised across multiple Commod- ity Off the Shelf (COTS) PC nodes connected by a commercial Gigabit Eth- ernet infrastructure. Since model reuse was important for cost effectiveness, it was decided to reuse all the existing models, by retaining their 100Hz logical time DTSSs. The large scale and event-based High Level Architecture (HLA), an IEEE standard for large-scale distributed simulation interoperability, had been identified as the most suitable distribution and parallelisation technology. However, two categories of risks in directly migrating to the HLA were iden- tified. The choice was made, with motivations, to mitigate the identified risks by developing a specialised custom distributed architecture. In this dissertation, the custom discrete time, distributed, peer-to-peer, message-passing architecture that has been built by the author in support of the parallelised simulator requirements, is described and analysed. It reports on empirical studies in regard to performance and flexibility. The architecture is shown to be a suitable and cost effective distributed simulator architecture for supporting a speed-up of three to four times through parallelisation of the 100 Hz logical time DTSS. This distributed architecture is currently in use and working as expected, but results in a parallelisation speed-up ceiling irrespective of the number of distributed processors. In addition, a hybrid discrete-time/discrete-event modelling approach and simulator is proposed that lowers the distributed communication and time synchronisation overhead—to improve on the scalability of the discrete time simulator—while still economically reusing the existing models. The pro- posed hybrid architecture was implemented and its real-time performance analysed. The hybrid architecture is found to support a parallelisation speed- up that is not bounded, but linearly related to the number of distributed pro- cessors up to at least the 11 processing nodes available for experimentation.Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2009.Computer Scienceunrestricte

Department of Computer Science Activity 1998-2004

This report summarizes much of the research and teaching activity of the Department of Computer Science at Dartmouth College between late 1998 and late 2004. The material for this report was collected as part of the final report for NSF Institutional Infrastructure award EIA-9802068, which funded equipment and technical staff during that six-year period. This equipment and staff supported essentially all of the department\u27s research activity during that period

An ontology-based P2P infrastructure to support context discovery in pervasive computing

Master'sMASTER OF ENGINEERIN