Title: ComplexSim: a flexible simulation platform for complex systems

Authors: Fabrizio Messina; Giuseppe Pappalardo; Corrado Santoro

Addresses: Department of Mathematics and Computer Science University of Catania, Via S.Sofia 64, 95125 Catania, Italy ' Department of Mathematics and Computer Science University of Catania, Via S.Sofia 64, 95125 Catania, Italy ' Department of Mathematics and Computer Science University of Catania, Via S.Sofia 64, 95125 Catania, Italy

Abstract: This paper describes ComplexSim, a C-based simulation platform intended to support the study of P2P systems and complex networks. Its architecture is based on two layers: 1) the parallel simulation kernel, which manages the execution of simulations on SMP systems, by providing a clean API enabling the definition and scheduling of tasks and events; 2) the complex network data and runtime, which allows a complex network to be defined as a graph of entities endowed with user-defined attributes and runtime behaviour. This paper describes the design of ComplexSim as well as the API it provides. Moreover, some experimental results are reported, showing that, even in the case of huge complex networks with hundred million nodes, ComplexSim exhibits better performances, in terms of memory consumption and processing times, with respect to similar solutions.

Keywords: complex networks; complex systems; peer to peer; P2P; overlay networks; pthreads; threads; symmetric multiprocessor systems; SMP; parallel programming; application programming interface; API; dynamic graphs; memory consumption; processing times; flexible simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSPM.2013.059417

International Journal of Simulation and Process Modelling, 2013 Vol.8 No.4, pp.202 - 211

Received: 20 Aug 2012
Accepted: 08 Mar 2013
Published online: 29 Jul 2014 *

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