Parallel and distributed simulation

Driven by the widespread availability of commercial multiprocessor systems and advances in computer networking, the parallel and distributed simulation field emerged and flourished in the late 1970s and 1980s. The field has evolved since that time to address critical issues such as synchronization and interoperability, and remains an active area of research to this day. Many impressive successes have been reported to date. Today, new platforms ranging from massively parallel, heterogeneous supercomputers and cloud computing environments as well as broader technology trends such as big data and the Internet of Things present new challenges and opportunities. This presentation will review work in the parallel and distributed simulation field from seminal research in the 1970s and 80s to important successes that illustrate the potential offered by this technology. Key impediments that have prevented the technology from achieving more widespread adoption by the general modeling and simulation community are discussed as well as important challenges that remain in exploiting new and emerging computing platforms and technology trends.