Trade-off between sequential and time warp-based parallel simulation

Abstract

Discrete event simulation is a methodology to study the behavior of complex systems. Its drawback is that, in order to get reliable results, simulations usually have to be run over a long stretch of time. This time requirement could decrease through the usage of parallel or distributed computing systems. In this paper, we analyze the Time Warp synchronization protocol for parallel discrete event simulation and present an analytical model evaluating the upper bound on the completion time of a Time Warp simulation. In our analysis, we consider the case of a simulation model with homogeneous logical processes, where "homogeneous" means they have the same average event routine time and the same state saving cost. Then we propose a methodology to determine when it is time-convenient to use a Time Warp synchronized simulation, instead of a sequential one, for a simulation model with features matching those considered in our analysis. We give an answer to this question without the need to preliminary generate the simulation code. Examples of methodology usage are reported for the case of both a synthetic benchmark and a real world model.