A portable framework for distributed simulation of colored stochastic Petri nets

This paper describes the development of a Java based simulator which has the capability to perform distributed simulation of colored stochastic Petri nets. The design specifics are presented, along with initial results using a single processor. This simulator is built based on algorithms which were developed to combine the race condition of stochastic Petri nets and the additional modeling convenience of colored Petri nets. Distributed simulation capabilities are being added to these tools, using inexpensive workstations connected solely by low cost LAN equipment. The new simulation software supports even more computing platforms than previous work, utilizing Sun Microsystems' Java to achieve processor and operating system portability. Future work is discussed, including development of new automatic partitioning and synchronization methods, which should yield significant improvement when simulating large colored Petri net models.