HLA_RePast

Large Scale Distributed Simulation of MAS via HLA

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HLA_Grid_Repast

In one of the earliest efforts that pioneered the deployment of HLA simulations on the Grid, the DS-Grid project developed the HLA_Grid_RePast system for the execution of HLA_RePast on Grid platforms. DS-Grid was one of only four international “sister” projects funded by the UK e-Science Core Programme with the aim to establish synergistic links between individual UK e-Science projects and leading Grid/e-Science projects from around the globe ((e-Science Sister Project GR/S82862/01), in partnership with NTU, Singapore).

The vision of the DS-Grid project was a “Grid plug-and-play distributed simulation system”, a distributed collaborative simulation environment where researchers with different domain knowledge and expertise, at different locations, develop, modify, assemble and execute distributed simulation components over the Grid. While HLA enables the construction of large-scale distributed simulations using existing and possibly distributed simulation components, Grid technologies enable collaboration and the use of distributed computing resources, while also facilitating access to geographically distributed data sets.

The HLA_Grid_RePast system integrates HLA_RePast onto Globus Toolkit v3. The system was deployed across UK and Singapore enabling the execution of a cross continental HLA_RePast Federation. This was the first time ever such a cross-continental HLA infrastructure for MAS simulations was set up and the first time a RePast simulation was partitioned across 2 continents.

Events

The project was underpinned by the organisation of two conferences:

  1. International Workshop on Distributed Simulation on the Grid, in conjunction with CCGRID 2006, Singapore, 16-19 May 2006 - pages 62-69. Some pictures from the workshop are here.
  2. The Challenges of working with Grids for Simulations, Birds of a Feather Session, e-Science All Hands Meeting 2006, UK, 20 September 2006.