Distributed Web-based Simulation Experiments for Optimization1

The web has grown tremendously over the past decade with applications in education, marketing, financial services, and supply chain management. Web technology also has a significant impact on computer simulation. Most of the effort in web-based simulation is aimed at modeling, particularly at building simulation languages and at creating model libraries that can be assembled and executed over the web. This paper focuses on efficiency of simulation experimentation for optimization. We introduce a framework for combining the statistical efficiency of simulation optimization techniques with the effectiveness of parallel execution algorithms. In particular, a novel simulation sampling procedure, the Optimal Computing Budget Allocation (OCBA) algorithm, is implemented in a web-based environment for low-cost parallel and distributed simulation experimentation. A prototype implementation with some experimental results is presented to show the viability of web-enabled simulation environments.