On the parallel simulation of scale-free networks

Scale-free networks have received much attention in recent years due to their prevalence in many important applications such as social networks, biological systems, and the Internet. We consider the use of conservative parallel discrete event simulation techniques in network simulation applications involving scale-free networks. An analytical model is developed to study the parallelism available in simulations using a conservative time window synchronization algorithm. The performance of scale-free network simulations using two variants of the Chandy/Misra/Bryant synchronization algorithm are evaluated. These results demonstrate the importance of topology in the performance of synchronization protocols when developing parallel discrete event simulations involving scale-free networks, and highlight important challenges such as performance bottlenecks that must be addressed to achieve efficient parallel execution. These results suggest that new approaches to parallel simulation of scale-free networks may offer significant benefit.