Edward Mascarenhas
Silicon Graphics Computer Systems
2011, N. Shoreline Blvd
MS 510,
Mountain View, CA 94043
edwardm@sgi.com
Felipe Knop
IBM Corporation
522 South Road
MS P963
Poughkeepsie, NY 12601
knop@kgn.ibm.com
Reuben Pasquini
Purdue University
Department of Computer Sciences
West Lafayette, IN 47907
pasquini@cs.purdue.edu
Vernon Rego
Purdue University
Department of Computer Sciences
West Lafayette, IN 47907
rego@cs.purdue.edu
ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation
vol. 8, no. 4 (October 1998)
Paper (PostScript
633 KB)
Paper (GZipped
PostScript 133 KB)
Papers only available to TOMACS subscribers and others authorized to access the ACM Digital Library.
We present a novel adaptive synchronization algorithm, called the minimum average cost (MAC) algorithm, in the context of the ParaSol parallel simulation system. ParaSol is a multithreaded system for parallel simulation on shared- and distributed-memory environments, designed to support domain-specific Simulation Object Libraries. The proposed MAC algorithm is based on minimizing the cost of synchronization delay and rollback at a process, whenever its simulation driver must decide whether to either proceed optimistically or to delay processing. In the former case the risk is rollback cost, in the event of a straggler's arrival. In the latter case the risk is unnecessary delay, in the event a late-comer is not a straggler. In addition to the MAC algorithm and an optimal delay computation model, we report on some early experiments comparing the performance of MAC-based adaptive synchronization to optimistic synchronization.
Algorithms, Experimentation, Performance
1.6.8 Computing Methodologies, Simulation and Modelin [Types of Simulation, Parallel]
ParaSol, stochastic simulation, parallel and distributed simulation, thread, adaptive synchronization, optimistic
synchronization, optimal delay