Distributed Simulation in Industry - A Survey Part 1 - The Cots Vendors

Distributed simulation is used very little in industry, especially when compared with the interest in distributed simulation from research and from the military domain. In order to answer the question why industry lags behind, the authors have carried out an extensive survey, using a questionnaire and interviews, with users, vendors, and developers of distributed simulation products, as well as with vendors of non-distributed simulation software. Based on the results the discrepancies between the different "worlds" become clear enough to enable the formulation of clear guidelines for further developments of standards for distributed simulation. This paper reports on the first part of the survey, namely a questionnaire targeted at vendors of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) simulation packages. Analysis of the answers obtained establish that it is indeed the case that industry is relatively underdeveloped in the area of distributed simulation and also sheds some light on the reasons behind this