UCLA Parallel Computing Laboratory

TRAVLER Simulation Environment

See also the ARPA TRAVLER page or the UCLA TRAVLER project summary. (Project funding information.). Here is the abstract of the poster on TRAVLER Simulation Environment at the UCLA CSD Research Review (15th Feb. 1996).

Objective

The goal of the TRAVLER project is to contribute critical technologies to develop a transparent virtual networking environment for mobile computing.

The goal of the simulation research is to design and implement a parallel, heterogenous simulation environment to both evaluate and monitor the mobile computing environment. Our specific interest is to predict the impact of the interaction between the networking (e.g. connectivity, communication substrate, network protocols) and file management (e.g. predictive caching, replication) components on the desired quality of service for the user.

Although models are needed to evaluate the performance of the proposed environment, they will also be an important component of the operational system. Many of the services that we envisage, e.g. predictive caching or adaptibility of the network interface may require regular predcitions on the future state of a system component under an estimated work-load and/or system configuration. The inclusion of a simplified modeling capability in the operational system will allow the system to dynamically and continuously evaluate the impact of various policies and select the most suitable alternative.

Approach

We plan to leverage ongoing research in the ARPA-supported WAMIS and SESAME research projects to provide a parallel, hybrid, real-time simulation environment built on the Maisie simulation language. (Click here to see how the projects interrelate). The hybrid environment will support parallel execution of simulation models and the operational prototype of the proposed virtual networking framework in an integrated environment. Deadline-based schedulers will be incorporated to support real-time and interactive model execution.

Accomplishments

The architecture of a simulation and implementation environment, NetSimPro, for nomadic and wireless system components has been designed and components of the system have been implemented. Algorithms for hybrid simulation models have been designed and a prototype implementation has been completed.

Publications