2 @mainpage SimGrid User Guide
7 <td valign="middle" align="left">
8 <img src="simgrid_logo_2011.png" alt="SimGrid - Scalable simulation of distributed systems, ranging from grids to peer-to-peer systems" />
10 <td valign="middle" align="left">
19 Welcome to the SimGrid user guide. In this document, you will find how to install, get started, configure, and run your first simulation with SimGrid.
21 \section sim_over SimGrid Overview
22 SimGrid is a toolkit that provides core functionalities for the simulation
23 of distributed applications in heterogeneous distributed environments.
25 The specific goal of the project is to facilitate research in the area of
26 distributed and parallel application scheduling on distributed computing
27 platforms ranging from simple network of workstations to Computational
30 - The official webpage is <a href="http://simgrid.gforge.inria.fr/">simgrid.gforge.inria.fr</a>.
31 - The Frequently Asked Questions are <a href="http://simgrid.gforge.inria.fr/faq.html">here</a>.
32 - The development webpage is <a href="https://gforge.inria.fr/projects/simgrid//">gforge.inria.fr/projects/simgrid</a>.
33 - The user mailing list is <simgrid-user@lists.gforge.inria.fr>
34 - The SimGrid software package can be downloaded from <a href="http://simgrid.gforge.inria.fr/download.html">here</a>.
39 \section ug_overview Overview of the toolkit components
41 As depicted by the following diagram, the SimGrid toolkit is basically
42 three-layered (click on the picture to jump to a specific component).
48 \htmlinclude simgrid_modules.map
50 <br><b>Relationships between the SimGrid components (click to jump to API)</b>
55 \subsection ug_overview_envs Programmation environments layer
57 SimGrid provides several programmation environments built on top of a unique
58 simulation kernel. Each environment targets a specific audiance and
59 constitutes a different paradigm. To choose which of them you want to use,
60 you have to think about what you want to do and what would be the result of
63 - If you want to study a theoritical problem and compare several
64 heuristics, you probably want to try <b>\ref MSG_API</b> (yet another
65 historical name). It was designed exactly to that extend and should allow
66 you to build easily rather realistic multi-agents simulation. Yet,
67 realism is not the main goal of this environment and the most annoying
68 technical issues of real platforms are masked here. Check the \ref
69 MSG_API section for more information.
71 - If you want to study the behaviour of a MPI application using emulation
72 technics, you should have a look at the <b>\ref SMPI_API</b> (Simulated
73 MPI) programming environment. Unfortunately, this work is still underway.
74 Check the \ref SMPI_API section for more information.
76 - If you want to develop a real distributed application, then you may find
77 <b>\ref GRAS_API</b> (Grid Reality And Simulation) useful. This is an API
78 for the realization of distributed applications.
80 Moreover, there is two implementations of this API: one on top of the
81 SURF (allowing to develop and test your application within the comfort of
82 the simulator) and another suited for deployment on real platforms
83 (allowing the resulting application to be highly portable and extremely
86 Even if you do not plan to run your code for real, you may want to switch
87 to GRAS if you intend to use MSG in a very intensive way (e.g. for
88 simulating a peer-to-peer environment).
90 See the \ref GRAS_API section for more details.
92 If your favorite programming environment/model is not there (BSP,
93 components, OpenMP, etc.) is not represented in the SimGrid toolkit yet, you may
94 consider adding it. You should contact us first on the
95 <a href=http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/mailman/listinfo/simgrid-devel>SimGrid
96 developers mailing list</a>, though.
98 \subsection ug_overview_kernel Simulation kernel layer
100 The core functionnalities to simulate a virtual platform are provided by a
101 module called <b>\ref SURF_API</b>. It is
102 very low-level and is not intended to be used as such by end-users. Instead,
103 it serve as a basis for the higher level layer.
105 SURF main features are a fast max-min linear solver and the ability to
106 change transparently the model used to describe the platform. This greatly
107 eases the comparison of the several models existing in the litterature.
109 See the \ref SURF_API section for more details.
111 \subsection ug_overview_fondation Base layer
113 The base of the whole toolkit is constituted by the <b>\ref XBT_API
114 (eXtended Bundle of Tools)</b>.
116 It is a portable library providing some grounding features such as \ref
117 XBT_log, \ref XBT_ex and \ref XBT_config. XBT also encompass
118 the following convenient datastructures: \ref XBT_dynar, \ref XBT_fifo, \ref
119 XBT_dict, \ref XBT_heap, \ref XBT_set and \ref XBT_swag.
121 See the \ref XBT_API section for more details.
124 \subsection ug_lucas_layer Tracing simulation
125 Finally, a transversal module allows you to trace your simulation. More documentation in the section \ref TRACE_doc
129 The SimGrid software package can be downloaded from
130 <a href="http://simgrid.gforge.inria.fr/download.html">here</a>.<br>
132 If you are interested in the history of SimGrid and in current and planned development,
133 you can find out more <a href="http://simgrid.gforge.inria.fr/history.html">here</a>.
135 Any question, remark or suggestion are welcome on the
136 <a href="http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/mailman/listinfo/simgrid-user">SimGrid users
143 <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/LGPL/2.1/"><img alt="CC-GNU LGPL" border="0" src="http://creativecommons.org/images/public/cc-LGPL-a.png" /></a>