Performance Issues for Parallel Implementations of Bootstrap Simulation Algorithm

• Ricardo M. Czekster PUCRS
• Paulo Fernandes PUCRS
• Afonso Sales PUCRS
• Thais Webber PUCRS

Abstract

The solution of state-based stochastic models is usually a demanding application, then it is a natural subject to high performance techniques. We are particularly interested in the speedup of Bootstrap Simulation of structured Markovian models. This approach is a quite recent development in the performance evaluation area, and it brings a considerable improvement in the results accuracy, despite the intrinsic effect of randomness in simulation experiments. Unfortunately, Bootstrap Simulation has higher computational cost than other alternatives. We present experiments with different options to optimize the parallel solution of Bootstrap Simulation applied to three practical examples described in Stochastic Automata Networks (SAN) formalism. This paper contribution resides in the discussion of theoretical implementation issues, the obtained speedup and the actual processing and communication times for all experiments. Additionally, we also suggest future works to improve even more the proposed solution and we discuss some interesting insights for parallelization of similar applications.

Keywords: Computational modeling, Numerical models, Automata, Markov processes, Trajectory, Storage area networks, Analytical models, Stochastic Modeling, Discrete-Event Simulation, Performance Evaluation, Parallel Applications