Replicating parallel simulation on heterogeneous clusters

Abstract

An effective approach of replicating parallel discrete-event simulation on heterogeneous workstation clusters is presented. In this approach, each replication of parallel simulation known as replicated parallel simulator (RPS) can reconfigure adaptively according to runtime resource availability. RPSs compete with other applications for computing resources in a shared-network environment of workstation clusters through a runtime system called Comedians. This approach aims to combine the benefits of parallelism and replication so that overall simulation performance can be enhanced. Experimental studies presented in this paper exhibit the effectiveness and the adaptability of the approach with different scheduling policies. The studies also show that coalition formation among the RPSs can further improve simulation performance and avoid counter-productive competition.