Discrete-event simulation on the Internet and the Web

Existing software development environments for discrete-event simulation have adopted either a language-based or a library-based approach. Although these approaches have advantages, they suffer from the following three major limitations. First, lack of portability. Simulation models developed using one simulation language or library might not be easily ported to another. Secondly, lack of interoper-ability. Components of a simulation application cannot be written in diierent programming languages, or running over diierent operating systems or hardware platforms. Third, lack of capability to execute over the Internet and the Web. Simulation models either perform sequential execution on a single workstation or run on parallel computers or LAN-connected workstations , which cannot scale over the Internet and the Web infrastructures. The paper addresses these limitations by proposing to facilitate discrete-event simulation as a `networked service' on the Internet and the Web. The simulation service is deened as a CORBA facility, where components of a simulation application access the facility to obtain execution support. The CORBA simulation facility enables portability and interoperability of simulation applications which may be developed in heterogeneous environments and communicate over the Internet. Moreover, by integrating with Java via IIOP, the approach also enables simulation applications to be developed in Java and executed on the Web.