Simulation in context; using data farming for decision support

Data farming leverages high performance computing to run simple models many times. This process allows for the exploration of massive parameter spaces relatively quickly. This paper explores a methodology to use data farming as a decision support tool. Data farming can be a highly effective in this role because it allows one to present to a decision-maker not only what may be the most likely outcome but what are possible outcomes, especially outliers that might have far reaching impact. The terrorist attacks of September 2001 are a good example of an outlier with very high impact. A case study is presented using a simple terrorist attack simulation and decision-maker utility model.