The Cost of Conservative Synchronization in Parallel Discrete Event Simulations
Abstract
This paper analytically studies the performance of a synchronous conservative parallel discrete-event simulation protocol. The class of simulation models considered are oriented around a physical domain, and possess a limited ability to predict future behavior. Using a stochastic model we show that as the volume of simulation activity in the model increases relative to a fixed architecture, the complexity of the average per-event overhead due to synchronization, event list manipulation, lookahead calculations, and processor idle time approaches the complexity of the average per-event overhead of a serial simulation. The method is therefore within a constant factor of optimal. Our analysis demonstrates that on large problems-those for which parallel processing is ideally suited-there is often enough parallel workload so that processors are not usually idle. We also demonstrate the viability of the method empirically, showing how good performance is achieved on large problems using a thirty-two node Intel iPSC/2 distributed multiprocessor. (Author) (Kr)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 07, 1990
- Accession Number
- ADA227190
Entities
People
- David M. Nicol