PP-MESS-SIM: A flexible and extensible simulator for evaluating multicomputer networks

This paper presents pp-mess-sim, an object-oriented discrete-event simulation environment for evaluating interconnection networks in message-passing systems. The simulator provides a toolbox of various network topologies, communication workloads, routing-switching algorithms, and router models. By carefully defining the boundaries between these modules, pp-mess-sim creates a flexible and extensible environment for evaluating different aspects of network design. The simulator models emerging multicomputer networks that can support multiple routing and switching schemes simultaneously, pp-mess-sim achieves this flexibility by associating routing-switching policies, traffic patterns, and performance metrics with collections of packets, instead of the underlying router model. Besides providing a general framework for evaluating router architectures, pp-mess-sim includes a cycle-level model of the PRC, a programmable router for point-to-point distributed systems. The PRC model captures low-level implementation details, while another high-level model facilitates experimentation with general router design issues. Sample simulation experiments capitalize on this flexibility to compare network architectures under various application workloads.