CAREER: Immersive Large-Scale Network Simulations

先进技术的成功对设计下一代高性能全球网络和可靠的分布式应用至关重要，取决于能够有效地对新想法进行原型测试和分析的可用工具。该项目将使大规模网络的高性能建模和仿真领域取得进展。研究内容包括实时大规模网络仿真的基本技术研究和实时沉浸式网络仿真环境的开发。实时网络仿真通过运行与物理世界交互的仿真模型，结合了仿真和仿真的优点。沉浸式大规模网络仿真要求仿真不仅要捕捉目标全局网络的重要特征，而且要支持与分布式应用的实时无缝交互。该项目分为三个研究方向：不精确仿真、GPU协同仿真、沉浸式网络仿真环境的开发。不精确仿真是从最初为实时系统设计的不精确计算技术扩展而来的，旨在通过允许仿真在运行时选择具有不同建模表示和不同计算要求的模型来实现大规模网络仿真的实时性能。GPU协同仿真利用了图形处理器的计算资源，图形处理器在当今的台式计算机上几乎无处不在，并且变得比CPU更强大；某些数值计算，如网络背景流量计算，可以卸载到图形硬件上，使CPU可以专注于更关键的实时仿真任务。将基于不精确仿真和GPU协同仿真技术开发沉浸式网络仿真环境，并将包括分层网络结构的替代设计的网络协议模型。

The success of advancing technologies critical to designing future-generation high-performance global networks and reliable distributed applications hinges on the available tools that can effectively prototype test, and analyze new ideas. The project will enable advances in the area of high-performance modeling and simulation of large-scale networks. The research includes an investigation of the fundamental technologies that enable real-time large-scale network simulationsand the development of a real-time immersive network simulation environment. Real-time network simulation combines the advantages of both simulation and emulation by running simulation models that interact with the physical world. Immersive large-scale network simulation requires that the simulation not only capture important characteristics of the target global network, but also support seamless interactions with distributed applications in real time. The project is divided into three research thrusts: imprecise simulation, GPU co-simulation, and the development of the immersive network simulation environment. Imprecise simulation, extended from the imprecise computation technique originally designed for real-time systems, aims to achieve real-time performance of large-scale network simulations, by allowing the simulation to choose among models with different modeling representations and with variable computing requirements during run-time. GPU co-simulation exploits the computing resource of graphics processors, which are almost omnipresent on todays desktop computers and become more powerful than CPUs; certain numerical computations, such as the network background traffic calculation, can be offloaded to the graphics hardware, so that the CPUs can concentrate on more critical tasks for real-time simulation. An immersive network simulation environment will be developed based on the imprecise simulation and GPU co-simulation techniques, and will also include models of network protocols of alternative designs of the layered network structures.