Load balancing for conservative simulation on shared memory multiprocessor systems

Load balancing is a crucial factor in achieving good performance for parallel discrete event simulations. We present a load balancing scheme that combines both static partitioning and dynamic load balancing. The static partitioning scheme maps simulation objects to logical processes before simulation starts while the dynamic load balancing scheme attempts to balance the load during runtime. The static scheme involves two steps. First, the simulation objects that contribute to small lookahead are merged together by using a merging algorithm. Then a partitioning algorithm is applied. The merging is needed to ensure a consistent performance for our dynamic scheme. Our dynamic scheme is tailor-made for an asynchronous simulation protocol that does not rely on null messages. The performance study on a supply chain simulation shows that the partitioning algorithm and dynamic load balancing are important in achieving good performance.