On the feasibility of running entity-level simulations on grid platforms

Abstract

Scientists have long relied on abstract models to study phenomena that are too complex for direct observation and experimentation. As new scientific modeling methodologies emerge, new computing technologies must be developed. In this paper, we focus on entity-level modeling, a modeling approach that is gaining prevalence in many scientific fields. Although the principles of entity-level modeling are straightforward, entity-level simulations require a large amount of compute resource and grid platforms can meet such resource needs. Unfortunately, efficient large-scale distributed entity-level simulations have proven elusive, typically due to nondeterminism that renders classical distributed application deployment strategies ineffective. In this work, we propose a method for dynamically remapping application tasks to cope with this inherent nondeterminism. We evaluate the efficacy of this method in a simulated grid computing environment and discuss the feasibility of executing entity-level applications on grids.