Distributed simulation in a loosely coupled environment using the TCP/IP protocol

We investigate in this paper the feasibility and the performance of two distributed simulation schemes in a loosely coupled multi-computer environment supported by the TCP/IP protocol. We compare the results of conservative and optimistic approach of distributed simulation of a bus based computer network. The results show that both approaches are effective even when implemented on a set of workstations connected by a local area network. The results also indicate that the optimistic approach performs better when the system being simulated is heavily loaded. One lesson learned from this research is that executing a parallel simulation on a uni-processor, multi-programmed computer results in degraded performance because of the synchronization overhead