How can we study large and complex systems

Simulation and performance evaluation have been tightly linked together over the past years. If traditional simulation techniques are now widespread and well-understood by a large number of users, this is not the case for distributed simulation used only by a few researchers. The authors demonstrate that parallel and distributed simulation techniques can be used to simulate large and complex models of ATM networks for performance evaluation. The CSAM tool has been developed for that purpose. The test model consists of a large ATM network with a load-balanced routing scheme that relies on link cost functions to distribute the load.