Design of an object-oriented framework for optimistic parallel simulation on shared-memory computers

Abstract

Parallel simulation, if it is to become a mainstream technology, must become reasonably accessible to programmers without unusual skills. Since low-cost shared memory machines are becoming an increasing possibility, a simulation package designed to perform efficiently on such machines is desirable. This paper presents previous results indicating some performance issues to be taken into account in such a simulator, and presents a design for an object-oriented package, based on features of C++,for a simulator using the optimistic model. The major finding is that C++ is suitable for such a simulation package, although a few difficulties are identified.