Title Recent Advances in Parallel and Distributed Discrete Event Simulation

Professor Stephen John Turner
School of Computer Engineering
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798
Email: steve@pmail.ntu.edu.sg

Stephen John Turner is Professor of Computer Science and Head of the Networks and Distributed Systems Division in the School of Computer Engineering at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). Previously, he was Director of the Parallel & Distributed Computing Centre in the School, where he was responsible for expanding the centre and its research activities. He received his MA in Mathematics and Computer Science from Cambridge University (UK) and his MSc and PhD in Computer Science from Manchester University (UK).

His current research interests include: Parallel and Distributed Simulation, Complex Adaptive Systems, High Performance Computing and Cloud Computing. He is Associate Editor for the Journal of Simulation (UK OR Society). From 2002 – 2012, he was steering committee chair of the ACM/IEEE/SCS Principles of Advanced and Distributed Simulation (PADS) conference and he has served as general or program co-chair for many conferences in the above areas. He has published extensively and has received a number of best paper awards at international conferences for his research in parallel and distributed simulation.


Abstract
Discrete event simulation is an important tool in business, science, engineering, and many other areas. However, the simulation of large complex systems often requires significant computing resources and data sets that may be geographically distributed. Historically, the focus of research in parallel discrete event simulation has been to reduce the execution time of large-scale simulation applications while ensuring that the same results are obtained as for a sequential execution. At the same time, distributed simulation has grown in importance as a strategic technology for linking simulation components of various types at multiple locations to create a common virtual environment, leading to the IEEE standard, the High Level Architecture.

This keynote address will first provide an overview of some of the fundamental concepts in parallel and distributed discrete event simulation. It will then discuss some important recent advances in this area, illustrated with examples of applications. These developments include: (i) the execution of large-scale simulations on massively parallel and heterogeneous architectures (multicore and GPGPU), (ii) parallel and distributed simulation in the Cloud, and (iii) symbiotic simulation, a type of online simulation where the simulation system and the physical system interact in a mutually beneficial way. The talk will conclude by outlining some of the important research challenges in this area that remain to be addressed.