What is SimGrid
===============
-SimGrid is a framework to simulate distributed computer systems.
+SimGrid is a framework to simulate distributed computer systems.
It can be used to either assess abstract algorithms, or to profile and
debug real distributed applications. SimGrid enables studies in the
- The studied **Application**. This can be either a distributed
algorithm described in our simple APIs, or a full featured real
- parallel application using for example the MPI interface
+ parallel application using for example the MPI interface
@ref application "(more info)".
- The **Virtual Platform**. This is a description of a given
scenario where B arrives first.
This is a very powerful mode, where you can evaluate the correction of
-your application. It can verify either **safety properties** (asserts)
+your application. It can verify either **safety properties** (asserts)
or **liveless properties** stating for example that if a given event
occures, then another given event will occur in a finite amount of
steps. This mode is not only usable with the abstract algorithms
--------------
This framework is by no means the perfect holly grail able to solve
-every problem on earth.
+every problem on earth.
** **SimGrid scope is limited to distributed systems.** Real-time
multithreaded systems are not in the scope. You could probably tweak
in this direction), but another framework specifically targeting this
usecase would probably be more suited.
-** **There is currently no support for IoT studies and wireless networks**.
+** **There is currently no support for IoT studies and wireless networks**.
The framework could certainly be improved in this direction, but this
is still to be done.
The SimGrid models target fast, large studies yet requesting a
realistic results. In particular, our models abstract away parameters
and phenomenon that are often irrelevant to the realism in our
-context.
+context.
SimGrid is simply not intended to any study that would mandate the
abstracted phenomenon. Here are some **studies that you should not do
SimGrid was cited in over 1,500 scientific papers (according to Google
Scholar). Among them
-<a href="http://simgrid.gforge.inria.fr/Usages.php">over 200
-publications</a> (written by about 300 individuals) use SimGrid as a
-scientific instrument to conduct their experimental evaluation. These
+`over 200 publications <http://simgrid.gforge.inria.fr/Usages.php>`_
+(written by about 300 individuals) use SimGrid as a scientific
+instrument to conduct their experimental evaluation. These
numbers do not count the articles contributing to SimGrid.
-This instrument was used in many research communities, such as
-<a href="https://hal.inria.fr/inria-00580599/">High-Performance Computing</a>,
-<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/CLOUD.2015.125">Cloud Computing</a>,
-<a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2310096.2310195">Workflow Scheduling</a>,
-<a href="https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01199200/">Big Data</a> and
-<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/WSCAD-SSC.2012.18">MapReduce</a>,
-<a href="http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7515695/">Data Grid</a>,
-<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1569190X17301028">Volunteer Computing</a>,
-<a href="https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01152469/">Peer-to-Peer Computing</a>,
-<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TPDS.2016.2613043">Network Architecture</a>,
-<a href="http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7946412/">Fog Computing</a>, or
-<a href="https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01333471">Batch Scheduling</a>
-<a href="http://simgrid.gforge.inria.fr/Usages.php"><b>(more info)</b></a>.
+This instrument was used in many research communities, such as
+`High-Performance Computing <https://hal.inria.fr/inria-00580599/>`_,
+`Cloud Computing <http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/CLOUD.2015.125>`_,
+`Workflow Scheduling <http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2310096.2310195>`_,
+`Big Data <https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01199200/>`_ and
+`MapReduce <http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/WSCAD-SSC.2012.18>`_,
+`Data Grid <http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7515695/>`_,
+`Volunteer Computing <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1569190X17301028>`_,
+`Peer-to-Peer Computing <https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01152469/>`_,
+`Network Architecture <http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TPDS.2016.2613043>`_,
+`Fog Computing <http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7946412/>`_, or
+`Batch Scheduling <https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01333471>`_
+`(more info) <http://simgrid.gforge.inria.fr/Usages.php>`_.
If your platform description is accurate enough (see
-<a href="http://hal.inria.fr/hal-00907887">here</a> or
-<a href="https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01523608">there</a>),
+`here <http://hal.inria.fr/hal-00907887>`_ or
+`there <https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01523608>`_),
SimGrid can provide high-quality performance predictions. For example,
we determined the speedup achieved by the Tibidabo Arm-based
cluster before its construction
-(<a href="http://hal.inria.fr/hal-00919507">paper</a>). In this case,
+(`paper <http://hal.inria.fr/hal-00919507>`_). In this case,
some differences between the prediction and the real timings were due to
misconfiguration or other problems with the real platforms. To some extent,
SimGrid could even be used to debug the real platform :)
SimGrid is also used to debug, improve and tune several large
applications.
-<a href="http://bigdft.org">BigDFT</a> (a massively parallel code
+`BigDFT <http://bigdft.org>`_ (a massively parallel code
computing the electronic structure of chemical elements developped by
-the CEA), <a href="http://starpu.gforge.inria.fr/">StarPU</a> (a
+the CEA), `StarPU <http://starpu.gforge.inria.fr/>`_ (a
Unified Runtime System for Heterogeneous Multicore Architectures
developped by Inria Bordeaux) and
-<a href="https://tomp2p.net/dev/simgrid/">TomP2P</a> (a high performance
+`TomP2P <https://tomp2p.net/dev/simgrid/>`_ (a high performance
key-value pair storage library developped at University of Zurich).
Some of these applications enjoy large user communities themselves.
----------------------
Now that you know about the basic concepts of SimGrid, you can give it
-a try. If it's not done yet, first @ref install "install it". Then,
+a try. If it's not done yet, first :ref:`install it <install>`. Then,
proceed to the section on @ref application "describing the application" that
you want to study.
