Simulation of Distributed Systems

This paper presents a methodology that allows the modeling of distributed discrete-event systems to be used in a single threaded simulation. It is assumed that the distributed system is described by a collection of independent models, one for each component. This is in contrast to distributed simulation where the simulation itself is distributed. We accomplish this task by including all of the models into a single program then simulating the communication network. This concept reduces modeling effort by reusing models, allows for trivial state initialization from hardware, and provides maximum fidelity over single model representation of distributed systems. In addition this paper describes the creation of a software tool that is designed to facilitate the modeling and simulation of distributed systems.