Interactive parallel simulations with the Jane framework

Three important practical issues in fostering the widespread use of paralle l simulation technology are the availability of graphical user interfaces, accessibility to parallel computing resources, and facilities for collabora ting in the execution of simulations. The availability of sophisticated gra phical interface development languages and environments, coupled with the a dvent of universal accessibility via the Internet, makes it easier to addre ss these issues. As part of our projects in high-performance telecommunicat ion network simulation and in distributed federated simulations. we are dev eloping a simulator-neutral interactive simulation framework called Jane. J ane is intended to help users to remotely and collaboratively interact with parallel simulations over the Internet, and to help them view their own mo del-specific run-time animations. We document the architectural details of the Jane framework along with the issues and challenges that we faced in de signing and implementing interactivity features in the framework, specifica lly in the context of our optimistic parallel simulator, GTW (Georgia Tech Time Warp), and the telecommunication modeling language, TeD. (C) 2001 Else vier Science B.V. All rights reserved.