Computational Science Technical Note CSTN-034

User-Friendly Scheduling Tools for Large-Scale Simulation Experiments

H.A.James, K.A.Hawick and C.J.Scogings

Archived March 2007

Abstract

Planning and steering numerical experiments that involve many simulations, are difficult tasks to automate. We describe how a simulation scheduling tool can help experimenters submit and revoke simulation jobs on the basis of the most up to date partial results and resource estimates. We show how ideas such as pre- and post-conditions; interrupt handling; rapid experiment schema creation; and sparse parameter cross-products can be used to make a generalisable and user-friendly scheduling toolset. We describe our prototype in the context of typical long-running computational experiments of a complex networks simulation problem.

Keywords: scheduling; simulation; pre- and post-condition.

Full Document Text: PDF version.

Citation Information: IEEE Proc. Winter Simulation Conference 2007 (WSC07), Dec 9-12 2007, Washington DC, USA, Paper 073, edited by S.G.Henderson, B.Biller, M.-H. Hsieh, J.Shortle, J.D.Tew and R.R.Barton, 1-4244-1306-0, pp610-616.
(See
http://www.informs-sim.org/wsc07papers/073.pdf)


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