Performance prediction tools for parallel discrete-event simulation

• Main Authors: Chu-Cheow Lim, Yoke-Hean Low, Boon-Ping Gan, Sanjay Jain, Wentong Cai, Wen Jing Hsu, Shell Ying Huang
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Atherosclerosis; Context modeling; Discrete event simulation; Electrical capacitance tomography; Gallium nitride; Information systems; Manufacturing; Protocols; Read only memory; Upper bound
• DOI: 10.1109/PADS.1999.766171

We have developed a set of performance prediction tools which help to estimate the achievable speedups from parallelizing a sequential simulation. The tools focus on two important factors in the actual speedup of a parallel simulation program: the simulation protocol used; and the inherent parallelism in the simulation model. The first two tools are a performance/parallelism analyzer for a conservative, asynchronous simulation protocol, and a similar analyzer for a conservative, synchronous (super-step) protocol. Each analyzer allows us to study how the speedup of a model changes with increasing number of processors, when a specific protocol is used. The third tool-a critical path analyzer-gives on ideal upper bound to the model's speedup. This paper gives an overview of the prediction tools, and reports the predictions from applying the tools to a discrete-event wafer fabrication simulation model. The predictions are close to speedups from actual parallel implementations. These tools help us to set realistic expectations of the speedup from a parallel simulation program, and to focus our work on issues which are more likely to yield performance improvement.