2 @mainpage SimGrid Reference Manual
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9 <img src="simgrid_logo_2011.png" alt="SimGrid - Scalable simulation of distributed systems, ranging from grids to peer-to-peer systems" />
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20 \section ref_guide_welcome SimGrid Reference Guide
22 Welcome to the SimGrid Reference Guide. This guide contains a detailed list of functions, macros and structs provided by SimGrid. This guide is supposed to help you to code your simulator using SimGrid primitives, so it means that you already know the basics of SimGrid, have it installed and so on. If not, please refer either to the SimGrid user guide or to the various tutorials available either online or in the relevant doc section.
24 \section a_quick_glance SimGrid ?
26 SimGrid is a toolkit that provides core functionalities for the simulation
27 of distributed applications in heterogeneous distributed environments.
29 The specific goal of the project is to facilitate research in the area of
30 distributed and parallel application scheduling on distributed computing
31 platforms ranging from simple network of workstations to Computational
35 - The official webpage is <a href="http://simgrid.gforge.inria.fr/">simgrid.gforge.inria.fr</a>.
36 - The Frequently Asked Questions are <a href="http://simgrid.gforge.inria.fr/faq.html">here</a>.
37 - The development webpage is <a href="https://gforge.inria.fr/projects/simgrid//">gforge.inria.fr/projects/simgrid</a>.
38 - The user mailing list is <simgrid-user@lists.gforge.inria.fr>
39 - The SimGrid software package can be downloaded from <a href="http://simgrid.gforge.inria.fr/download.html">here</a>.
44 \section overview Overview of the toolkit components
46 As depicted by the following diagram, the SimGrid toolkit is basically
47 three-layered (click on the picture to jump to a specific component).
53 \htmlinclude simgrid_modules.map
56 <br><b>Relationships between the SimGrid components (click to jump to API)</b>
60 \subsection overview_envs Programmation environments layer
62 SimGrid provides several programmation environments built on top of a unique
63 simulation kernel. Each environment targets a specific audiance and
64 constitutes a different paradigm. To choose which of them you want to use,
65 you have to think about what you want to do and what would be the result of
68 - If you want to study a theoritical problem and compare several
69 heuristics, you probably want to try <b>\ref MSG_API</b> (yet another
70 historical name). It was designed exactly to that extend and should allow
71 you to build easily rather realistic multi-agents simulation. Yet,
72 realism is not the main goal of this environment and the most annoying
73 technical issues of real platforms are masked here. Check the \ref
74 MSG_API section for more information.
76 - If you want to study the behaviour of a MPI application using emulation
77 technics, you should have a look at the <b>\ref SMPI_API</b> (Simulated
78 MPI) programming environment. Unfortunately, this work is still underway.
79 Check the \ref SMPI_API section for more information.
81 If your favorite programming environment/model is not there (BSP,
82 components, OpenMP, etc.) is not represented in the SimGrid toolkit yet, you may
83 consider adding it. You should contact us first on the
84 <a href=http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/mailman/listinfo/simgrid-devel>SimGrid
85 developers mailing list</a>, though.
87 \subsection overview_kernel Simulation kernel layer
89 The core functionnalities to simulate a virtual platform are provided by a
90 module called <b>\ref SURF_API</b>. It is
91 very low-level and is not intended to be used as such by end-users. Instead,
92 it serve as a basis for the higher level layer.
94 SURF main features are a fast max-min linear solver and the ability to
95 change transparently the model used to describe the platform. This greatly
96 eases the comparison of the several models existing in the litterature.
98 See the \ref SURF_API section for more details.
100 \subsection overview_fondation Base layer
102 The base of the whole toolkit is constituted by the <b>\ref XBT_API
103 (eXtended Bundle of Tools)</b>.
105 It is a portable library providing some grounding features such as \ref
106 XBT_log, \ref XBT_ex and \ref XBT_config. XBT also encompass
107 the following convenient datastructures: \ref XBT_dynar, \ref XBT_fifo, \ref
108 XBT_dict, \ref XBT_heap, \ref XBT_set and \ref XBT_swag.
110 See the \ref XBT_API section for more details.
113 \subsection lucas_layer Tracing simulation
114 Finally, a transversal module allows you to trace your simulation. More documentation in the section \ref TRACE_doc
118 The SimGrid software package can be downloaded from
119 <a href="http://simgrid.gforge.inria.fr/download.html">here</a>.<br>
121 If you are interested in the history of SimGrid and in current and planned development,
122 you can find out more <a href="http://simgrid.gforge.inria.fr/history.html">here</a>.
124 Any question, remark or suggestion are welcome on the
125 <a href="http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/mailman/listinfo/simgrid-user">SimGrid users
133 <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>