NetStep: a micro-stepped distributed network simulation framework

This paper presents NetStep, a prototype for the distributed simulation of very large scale network simulations, such as the simulation of peer-to-peer applications. We use simulation micro-steps as a means for optimizing the overlap of communications and computations, without changing the original event-driven model. As a consequence, NetStep allows for the reuse of unmodified existing sequential simulators for building large-scale distributed simulations: the overall simulation is divided both in time and space, into a large number of simulation micro-steps, each of which being executed by a legacy sequential simulator. By choosing the time-step smaller than the minimal look-ahead due to communications, we avoid the need for synchronization between Logical Processes during the simulation. Instead, the simulated communications become inputs and outputs of the simulation micro-steps, and are routed in parallel between LPs by a NetStep dedicated entity. Our prototype is based on the SimGrid sequential simulator.