Boreas: Efficient Synchronization for Scalable Emulation of Sensor Networks

Cycle-accurate emulation of sensor networks allows a detailed analysis of platform target code for development and evaluation. However, the high overhead incurred by providing the necessary fidelity limits the size of the emulated networks considerably. The use of multiple cores provided by modern hardware can significantly improve the speed of emulation but requires synchronization algorithms to preserve causality. Based on the well-known multithreaded event-driven emulator Avrora, we investigate a number of synchronization methods including an algorithm that does not require any locks to improve the performance. We show that both the speed and the scalability can be significantly improved without sacrificing correctness. Additionally, we evaluate the impact of modern CPU technologies such as simultaneous multithreading on emulation performance.