A Language to Enable Distributed Simulation of Extended Queueing Networks

Abstract

Distributed simulators are increasingly being used for their intrinsic advantages in terms of reusability, fault tolerance, performance, and geographic distribution. The development of a distributed simulator, however, requires significant investments in terms of effort if compared to the development of traditional local simulators. This paper introduces jEQN, a Java-based language that significantly reduces the extra effort needed to develop a distributed simulator of extended queueing networks (EQNs), by enabling simulator developers to build distributed simulators as they were to be locally executed. By use of jEQN, simulator developers are enabled to easily switch from a local to a distributed version of an EQN simulator by only modifying few statements of the given local simulator. Moreover, these statements can be easily inferred by a very intuitive graphical procedure. The paper illustrates both the jEQN architecture, based on a layered approach, and the implementation details that contribute to achieve the above mentioned advantages.