5 <img align=center src="simgrid_logo.png" alt="SimGrid"><br>
11 \section hot_news HOT NEWS
13 <b>SimGrid 3.0.1 was released on 22st of October 2005. Get it from
14 <a href="https://gforge.inria.fr/frs/?group_id=12">here</a>.</b>
16 \section quick Quick start
18 SimGrid is a toolkit that provides core functionalities for the simulation
19 of distributed applications in heterogeneous distributed environments.
20 The specific goal of the project is to facilitate research in the area of
21 distributed and parallel application scheduling on distributed computing
22 platforms ranging from simple network of workstations to Computational
25 \subsection quick_dl Getting and installing the software
27 - The official webpage is <a href="http://simgrid.gforge.inria.fr/">simgrid.gforge.inria.fr</a>.
28 - The development webpage is <a href="https://gforge.inria.fr/projects/simgrid//">gforge.inria.fr/projects/simgrid</a>.
29 - The user mailing list is <simgrid-user@lists.gforge.inria.fr>
30 - The SimGrid software package can be downloaded from <a href="https://gforge.inria.fr/frs/?group_id=12">here</a>.
32 To compile and install it, simply type the following. If you are not
33 familiar with compiling C files under UNIX and using libraries, please check
34 the \ref faq. SimGrid also works under Windows, but we do not distribute any
35 pre-compiled binaries [yet].
37 \verbatim $ ./configure
40 # make install\endverbatim
42 \subsection quick_more More information
44 The API (along with some example of
45 use) is described in \ref SimGrid_API.
47 For more information about the SimGrid toolkit, please simply keep reading
48 this page. It is organized as follow:
50 - \ref overview : Presentation of the toolkit, of each of its components
51 and of their interactions.
52 - \ref people : Who is behind this project.
53 - \ref publis : Some articles providing more details about the
54 SimGrid toolkit or using and validating it.
58 \section overview Overview of the toolkit components
60 As depicted by the following diagram, the SimGrid toolkit is basically
61 three-layered (click on the picture to jump to a specific component).
67 \htmlinclude simgrid_modules.map
69 <br><b>Relationships between the SimGrid components</b>
73 \subsection overview_envs Programmation environments layer
75 SimGrid provides several programmation environments built on top of a uniq
76 simulation kernel. Each environment targets a specific audiance and
77 constitutes a different paradigm. To choose which of them you want to use,
78 you have to think about what you want to do and what would be the result of
81 - If you want to study a theoritical problem and compare several
82 heuristics, you probably want to try <b>\ref MSG_API</b> (yet another
83 historical name). It was designed exactly to that extend and should allow
84 you to build easily rather realistic multi-agents simulation. Yet,
85 realism is not the main goal of this environment and the most annoying
86 technical issues of real platforms are masked here. Check the \ref
87 MSG_API section for more information.
89 - If you want to study the behaviour of a MPI application using emulation
90 technics, you should have a look at the <b>\ref SMPI_API</b> (Simulated
91 MPI) programming environment. Unfortunately, this work is still underway.
92 Check the \ref SMPI_API section for more information.
94 - If you want to develop a real distributed application, then you may find
95 <b>\ref GRAS_API</b> (Grid Reality And Simulation) useful. This is an API
96 for the realization of distributed applications.
98 Moreover, there is two implementations of this API: one on top of the
99 SURF (allowing to develop and test your application within the comfort of
100 the simulator) and another suited for deployment on real platforms
101 (allowing the resulting application to be highly portable and extremely
104 Even if you do not plan to run your code for real, you may want to switch
105 to GRAS if you intend to use MSG in a very intensive way (e.g. for
106 simulating a peer-to-peer environment).
108 See the \ref GRAS_API section for more details.
110 If your favorite programming environment/model is not there (BSP,
111 components, DAG, etc.) is not represented in the SimGrid toolkit yet, you may
112 consider adding it. You should contact us first on the
113 <a href=http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/mailman/listinfo/simgrid-devel>SimGrid
114 developers mailing list</a>, though.
116 \subsection overview_kernel Simulation kernel layer
118 The core functionnalities to simulate a virtual platform are provided by a
119 module called <b>\ref SURF_API</b> ("that's historical, my friend"). It is
120 very low-level and is not intended to be used as such by end-users. Instead,
121 it serve as a basis for the higher level layer.
123 SURF main features are a fast max-min linear solver and the ability to
124 change transparently the model used to describe the platform. This greatly
125 eases the comparison of the several models existing in the litterature.
127 See the \ref SURF_API section for more details.
129 \subsection overview_fondation Base layer
131 The base of the whole toolkit is constituted by the <b>\ref XBT_API
132 (eXtended Bundle of Tools)</b>.
134 It is a portable library providing some grounding features such as \ref
135 XBT_log, \ref XBT_ex and \ref XBT_config. XBT also encompass
136 the following convenient datastructures: \ref XBT_dynar, \ref XBT_fifo, \ref
137 XBT_dict, \ref XBT_heap, \ref XBT_set and \ref XBT_swag.
139 See the \ref XBT_API section for more details.
142 Any question, remark or suggestion are welcome on the
143 <a href=http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/mailman/listinfo/simgrid-user>SimGrid users
148 \section people People
150 SimGrid is a joint project between University of Hawai at Manoa, ID
151 Laboratory (Grenoble, France) and University of Nancy (France). The
152 authors of SimGrid are:
154 - Henri Casanova <casanova#cs.ucsd.edu> (Information and Computer Sciences Department, University of Hawai`i at Manoa)
155 - Arnaud Legrand <arnaud.legrand#imag.fr> ("Informatique et Distribution" Laboratory (Grenoble, France), MESCal project)
156 - Martin Quinson <martin.quinson#loria.fr> (University of Nancy (Nancy, France), LORIA Laboratory, Algorille project)
158 \subsection contributers Contributers and alumni project members
160 - Loris Marchal: wrote the algorithm for simulation TCP bandwidth-sharing.
161 - Julien Lerouge : wrote a XML parser for ENV descriptions and helped for
162 the general design during a 4 month period (march-june 2002)
164 - Clément Menier and Marc Perache : wrote a first prototype of the MSG
165 interface during a project at ENS-Lyon (jan 2002).
166 - Dmitrii Zagorodnov : wrote some parts of the first version of SimGrid