5 <img align=center src="simgrid_logo.png" alt="SimGrid"><br>
9 SimGrid is a toolkit that provides core functionalities for the simulation
10 of distributed applications in heterogeneous distributed environments.
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12 The specific goal of the project is to facilitate research in the area of
13 distributed and parallel application scheduling on distributed computing
14 platforms ranging from simple network of workstations to Computational
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18 - The official webpage is <a href="http://simgrid.gforge.inria.fr/">simgrid.gforge.inria.fr</a>.
19 - The Frequently Asked Questions are <a href="faq.html">here</a>.
20 - The development webpage is <a href="https://gforge.inria.fr/projects/simgrid//">gforge.inria.fr/projects/simgrid</a>.
21 - The user mailing list is <simgrid-user@lists.gforge.inria.fr>
22 - The SimGrid software package can be downloaded from <a href="https://gforge.inria.fr/frs/?group_id=12">here</a>.
26 \section overview Overview of the toolkit components
28 As depicted by the following diagram, the SimGrid toolkit is basically
29 three-layered (click on the picture to jump to a specific component).
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35 \htmlinclude simgrid_modules.map
37 <br><b>Relationships between the SimGrid components (click to jump to API)</b>
41 \subsection overview_envs Programmation environments layer
43 SimGrid provides several programmation environments built on top of a uniq
44 simulation kernel. Each environment targets a specific audiance and
45 constitutes a different paradigm. To choose which of them you want to use,
46 you have to think about what you want to do and what would be the result of
49 - If you want to study a theoritical problem and compare several
50 heuristics, you probably want to try <b>\ref MSG_API</b> (yet another
51 historical name). It was designed exactly to that extend and should allow
52 you to build easily rather realistic multi-agents simulation. Yet,
53 realism is not the main goal of this environment and the most annoying
54 technical issues of real platforms are masked here. Check the \ref
55 MSG_API section for more information.
57 - If you want to study the behaviour of a MPI application using emulation
58 technics, you should have a look at the <b>\ref SMPI_API</b> (Simulated
59 MPI) programming environment. Unfortunately, this work is still underway.
60 Check the \ref SMPI_API section for more information.
62 - If you want to develop a real distributed application, then you may find
63 <b>\ref GRAS_API</b> (Grid Reality And Simulation) useful. This is an API
64 for the realization of distributed applications.
66 Moreover, there is two implementations of this API: one on top of the
67 SURF (allowing to develop and test your application within the comfort of
68 the simulator) and another suited for deployment on real platforms
69 (allowing the resulting application to be highly portable and extremely
72 Even if you do not plan to run your code for real, you may want to switch
73 to GRAS if you intend to use MSG in a very intensive way (e.g. for
74 simulating a peer-to-peer environment).
76 See the \ref GRAS_API section for more details.
78 If your favorite programming environment/model is not there (BSP,
79 components, DAG, etc.) is not represented in the SimGrid toolkit yet, you may
80 consider adding it. You should contact us first on the
81 <a href=http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/mailman/listinfo/simgrid-devel>SimGrid
82 developers mailing list</a>, though.
84 \subsection overview_kernel Simulation kernel layer
86 The core functionnalities to simulate a virtual platform are provided by a
87 module called <b>\ref SURF_API</b> ("that's historical, my friend"). It is
88 very low-level and is not intended to be used as such by end-users. Instead,
89 it serve as a basis for the higher level layer.
91 SURF main features are a fast max-min linear solver and the ability to
92 change transparently the model used to describe the platform. This greatly
93 eases the comparison of the several models existing in the litterature.
95 See the \ref SURF_API section for more details.
97 \subsection overview_fondation Base layer
99 The base of the whole toolkit is constituted by the <b>\ref XBT_API
100 (eXtended Bundle of Tools)</b>.
102 It is a portable library providing some grounding features such as \ref
103 XBT_log, \ref XBT_ex and \ref XBT_config. XBT also encompass
104 the following convenient datastructures: \ref XBT_dynar, \ref XBT_fifo, \ref
105 XBT_dict, \ref XBT_heap, \ref XBT_set and \ref XBT_swag.
107 See the \ref XBT_API section for more details.
110 Any question, remark or suggestion are welcome on the
111 <a href=http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/mailman/listinfo/simgrid-user>SimGrid users
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117 \section people People
119 SimGrid is a joint project between University of Hawai at Manoa, ID
120 Laboratory (Grenoble, France) and University of Nancy (France). The
121 authors of SimGrid are:
123 - Henri Casanova <casanova#cs.ucsd.edu> (Information and Computer Sciences Department, University of Hawai`i at Manoa)
124 - Arnaud Legrand <arnaud.legrand#imag.fr> ("Informatique et Distribution" Laboratory (Grenoble, France), MESCal project)
125 - Martin Quinson <martin.quinson#loria.fr> (University of Nancy (Nancy, France), LORIA Laboratory, Algorille project)
127 \subsection contributers Contributers and alumni project members
129 - Loris Marchal: wrote the algorithm for simulation TCP bandwidth-sharing.
130 - Julien Lerouge : wrote a XML parser for ENV descriptions and helped for
131 the general design during a 4 month period (march-june 2002)
133 - Clément Menier and Marc Perache : wrote a first prototype of the MSG
134 interface during a project at ENS-Lyon (jan 2002).
135 - Dmitrii Zagorodnov : wrote some parts of the first version of SimGrid