mJADES: Concurrent Simulation in the Cloud

Abstract

The simulation of complex systems is a time expensive and resource consuming task. Furthermore, the statistical validation of simulation models or the need to compare the system behavior in several different conditions require many simulation runs. A viable solution to speed up the process is to run multiple simulations in parallel on a distributed system, for example by means of a web interface. In this context, the cloud computing paradigm can be of help, offering almost unlimited computing resources that can be leased as a service. In this paper we will present the structure of a new simulation engine " in thecloud" (mJADES), which runs on the top of an ad-hoc federation of cloud providers and is designed to perform multiple concurrent simulations. Given a set of simulation tasks, mJADES is able automatically to acquire the computing resources needed from the cloud and to distribute the simulation runs to be executed.