Birds of a Feather Session: The Challenges of working with Grids for Simulations
Date: Tuesday 20th September 2006, 17:00 - 19:00 Venue: Conference Room 3
Organiser: Sharon Lloyd & Georgios K. Theodoropoulos
Duration: 120 mins
Aim of workshop
The development of complex discrete event simulation applications usually
requires collaborative effort from researchers with different domain knowledge
and expertise, possibly at different locations. Furthermore, these simulation
systems often require huge computing resources and the data sets required
by the simulation may also be geographically distributed. While the High
Level Architecture (HLA) defines a standard for the construction of large-scale
distributed simulations, Grid technologies enable collaboration and the
use of distributed computing resources, while also facilitating access
to geographically distributed data sets. The aim of the BoF session is
to address the research challenges in developing large-scale distributed
simulations on the Grid. Challenges to be addressed include:
- support for collaborative simulation development
- advanced model and service discovery mechanisms
- mechanisms for fault-tolerant, coordinated, secured simulation executions
- resource management, load balancing and migration mechanisms
- agent-oriented simulation environments
- web and grid technologies for simulation frameworks
The aims of this workshop are to articulate the challenges of working
with grid for simulations, from the fairly simple heart modeling codes
as highlighted in Integrative Biology to the complex as described by the
Distributed Simulations on the Grid project.
We will present successes of using the grid in the UK as well as the challenges
in doing so.
The workshop will allow attendees to discuss challenges and support needs
as well as sharing experience of overcoming these challenges. It is expected
that we would be able to provide feedback to providers of such infrastructures
for future support of those who require facilities for running simulations.
This workshop will be of interest to both those who have experience of
developing codes and managing their simulations on a grid as well as those
wishing to learn more before embarking on such a challenge.
BOF Agenda:
- Introduction - "What do we mean by simulations?"
Dr Georgios K. Theodoropoulos
School of Computer Science, The University of Birmingham [20mins] G.K.Theodoropoulos@cs.bham.ac.uk
- Integrative Biology - an Introduction - Sharon Lloyd
[10 mins] Sharon.lloyd@comlab.ox.ac.uk
- Successes - Presentations from those running simulations
on the grid from the simple to the complex
a) Integrative Biology Successes
Integrative Biology -Heart Modelling on HPCx - Richard Clayton [10 mins] r.h.clayton@sheffield.ac.uk
Integrative Biology - Multiscale modeling with coupled models on distributed resources - Gianni de Fabritiis [10 mins] g.defabritiis@ucl.ac.uk
b) Distributed Simulations on the Grid successes
HLA_Grid: An infrastructure to support HLA-based distributed simulation on the Grid - Cai Wentong, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, [10 mins] ASWTCAI@ntu.edu.sg
HLA_Grid_RePast: Adopting HLA_Grid for agent-based distributed Simulation - Dr Georgios K. Theodoropoulos School of Computer Science, The University of Birmingham [10mins] G.K.Theodoropoulos@cs.bham.ac.uk
- Discuss support requirements for managing simulations
on a grid (45 mins)
- support for collaborative simulation development
- advanced model and service discovery mechanisms
- mechanisms for fault-tolerant, coordinated, secured simulation executions
- resource management, load balancing and migration mechanisms
- agent-oriented simulation environments
- web and grid technologies for simulation frameworks
- possible applications of technology from "Distributed Simulations on the Grid"
- Wrapup and Close
