Enabling Distributed Simulation of OMNeT++ INET Models

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the INET model suite for OMNeT++, identifies issues preventing parallel execution, and develops solutions to enable distributed simulation, demonstrating feasible speedup through a case study.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of INET models' parallelizability and offers solutions to enable distributed simulation, which was not previously possible.

Findings

Identified key issues preventing INET models from parallel execution.

Developed solutions enabling parallel simulation of INET models.

Achieved measurable speedup in distributed simulation scenarios.

Abstract

Parallel and distributed simulation have been extensively researched for a long time. Nevertheless, many simulation models are still executed sequentially. We attribute this to the fact that many of those models are simply not capable of being executed in parallel since they violate particular constraints. In this paper, we analyze the INET model suite, which enables network simulation in OMNeT++, with regard to parallelizability. We uncovered several issues preventing parallel execution of INET models. We analyzed those issues and developed solutions allowing INET models to be run in parallel. A case study shows the feasibility of our approach. Though there are parts of the model suite that we didn't investigate yet and the performance can still be improved, the results show parallelization speedup for most configurations. The source code of our implementation is available through our web site at code.comsys.rwth-aachen.de.