Distributed simulation in industry -- a survey, part 3 -- the HLA standard in industry
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paper_title: Distributed Simulation in Industry

paper_content:

textabstractCsaba Attila Boer was born in Satu Mare, Romania, on 29 October, 1975. He completed his secondary education at Kolcsey Ferenc High School, in Satu Mare, in 1994. In the same year he started his higher education at Babes-Bolyai University, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, where he received his B.Sc. degree in Computer Science, in 1998, and his M.Sc. degree with major in Information Systems, specialization Designing and Implementing Complex Systems, in 1999. During these years, he obtained fellowships at the Eotvos Lorand University, and at the Computer and Automation Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary within the Central European Exchange Program for University Studies (CEEPUS). Since 1999, he has been affiliated with the Computer Science Department, Faculty of Economics at Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. There, he worked as a ::: researcher for one year, studying the storage and retrieval of discrete event simulation models, research that resulted in three scientific articles. Between 2000 and 2004, he was associated with the same department as a Ph.D. candidate aiming to research the area of distributed simulation and its application in industry. His topic being close to the research ::: carried out at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, and the BETADE research program, he started to collaborate with researchers from these groups, getting involved in two joint practical case study projects. This ::: collaboration resulted in seven joint scientific articles, presented at various international ::: conferences. Furthermore, Csaba has maintained international contacts with researchers ::: from the distributed simulation area. He has been invited twice to Brunel University, London to give a presentation concerning the application of distributed simulation in industry. Currently, he is working as a simulation consultant at
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paper_title: Distributed simulation in industry -- a survey: part 2 -- experts on distributed simulation

paper_content:

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. This paper reports on the second part of the survey, namely a series of open ended interviews. We report on the responses we obtained indicating the discrepancies between the different "worlds". A categorization of these responses is given using which it is possible to formulate clear guidelines for further developments of standards for distributed simulation.
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paper_title: Distributed simulation in industry -- a survey: part 1 -- the COTS vendors

paper_content:

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.
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paper_title: Distributed simulation with COTS simulation packages

paper_content:

Connecting COTS (commercial-off-the-self) simulation packages entails various difficulties. First of all, commercially available simulation packages hide the access to some internal data that is needed to connect to other simulation models in the distributed simulation study. Next, the data sharing between simulation models is complicated. In order to carry out distributed simulation studies applying COTS simulation packages, we have to exactly define the interfacing and data transfer mechanisms. In this paper we present a theoretical description of different solutions for interfacing and transferring data between various simulation models. These mechanisms have been implemented and tested, and applied in a project in order to prove their practical usage.
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paper_title: Parallel and distributed simulation systems

paper_content:

Originating from basic research conducted in the 1970's and 1980's, the parallel and distributed simulation field has matured over the last few decades. Today, operational systems have been fielded for applications such as military training, analysis of communication networks, and air traffic control systems, to mention a few. The article gives an overview of technologies to distribute the execution of simulation programs over multiple computer systems. Particular emphasis is placed on synchronization (also called time management) algorithms as well as data distribution techniques.
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paper_title: Distributed Simulation in Industry

paper_content:

textabstractCsaba Attila Boer was born in Satu Mare, Romania, on 29 October, 1975. He completed his secondary education at Kolcsey Ferenc High School, in Satu Mare, in 1994. In the same year he started his higher education at Babes-Bolyai University, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, where he received his B.Sc. degree in Computer Science, in 1998, and his M.Sc. degree with major in Information Systems, specialization Designing and Implementing Complex Systems, in 1999. During these years, he obtained fellowships at the Eotvos Lorand University, and at the Computer and Automation Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary within the Central European Exchange Program for University Studies (CEEPUS). Since 1999, he has been affiliated with the Computer Science Department, Faculty of Economics at Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. There, he worked as a ::: researcher for one year, studying the storage and retrieval of discrete event simulation models, research that resulted in three scientific articles. Between 2000 and 2004, he was associated with the same department as a Ph.D. candidate aiming to research the area of distributed simulation and its application in industry. His topic being close to the research ::: carried out at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, and the BETADE research program, he started to collaborate with researchers from these groups, getting involved in two joint practical case study projects. This ::: collaboration resulted in seven joint scientific articles, presented at various international ::: conferences. Furthermore, Csaba has maintained international contacts with researchers ::: from the distributed simulation area. He has been invited twice to Brunel University, London to give a presentation concerning the application of distributed simulation in industry. Currently, he is working as a simulation consultant at
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Title: Distributed simulation in industry -- a survey, part 3 -- the HLA standard in industry

Section 1: INTRODUCTION
Description 1: Provide an overview of the previous surveys, primary research questions, and objectives of this paper.

Section 2: ARGUMENTS RELATED TO DISTRIBUTED SIMULATION IN INDUSTRY
Description 2: Discuss the reasons why distributed simulation is rarely applied in the industry, focusing on cost-benefit analysis and general challenges.

Section 3: Monetary Cost
Description 3: Analyze the direct monetary costs involved in applying distributed simulation, including the cost of tools like the Run Time Infrastructure (RTI).

Section 4: Time
Description 4: Explain how distributed modelling increases complexity and the amount of time required for design, development, and learning.

Section 5: Quality
Description 5: Discuss the potential impact on the quality of simulation models and how distributed simulation may lead to performance issues.

Section 6: ARGUMENTS RELATED TO THE HLA STANDARD IN INDUSTRY
Description 6: Evaluate why the HLA standard has not been widely adopted in the industry, focusing on its complexity, transparency, and efficiency.

Section 7: The HLA Standard is too Complex for Industry
Description 7: Explore the perceived complexity of the HLA standard and its steep learning curve.

Section 8: The HLA Standard is not Transparent enough for Industry
Description 8: Discuss complaints about the lack of transparency in the HLA standard.

Section 9: The Current Implementations of the HLA Standard, especially the DMSO RTI, are too Inefficient for Industry
Description 9: Review the performance issues related to current HLA RTI implementations and their impact on industrial acceptance.

Section 10: ARGUMENTS RELATED TO THE RELATION BETWEEN HLA AND COTS
Description 10: Analyze how COTS simulation packages support HLA and the challenges associated with creating HLA-compliant models.

Section 11: CONCLUSION
Description 11: Summarize the main findings and discuss the perceived cost-benefit ratio and the deadlock situation in adopting distributed simulation in the industry.