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Scalability and Performance Evaluation of DDM-Based Aggregation/Dissaggregation Protocols for Large-Scale Distributed Interactive Simulations Systems

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Abstract

Aggregation/disaggregation is a method for implementing multi-resolution simulations within a High Level Architecture (HLA) federation. HLA is a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) developed standard to facilitate linking different types of simulations, in various locations, to form an or interactive, full-scale simulation, called a federation. Data Distribution Management (DDM) is a High Level Architecture/Run-time Infrastructure (HLA/RTI) service that manages the distribution of state updates and interaction information and controls the volume of data exchanged, in large-scale distributed simulations. The purpose of HLA is to promote interoperability and reuse among heterogenous simulations, including those simulations that offer varied levels of resolution, to provide practical training to military personnel of different ranks. The purpose of Aggregation/disaggregation is to ensure consistency in state updates between federates simulating objects at various levels of resolution. This paper focuses on the scalability of aggregation/disaggregation with different DDM implementations and examines the effects, on performance of large-scale simulations. We implement a federate-based aggregation/disaggregation scheme, originally introduced in [TAN01], with a tank dogfight scenario, aggregating five tanks into one tank battalion and disaggregating the battalion back into five individual entities (tanks). The DDM methods we analyze consist of the Fixed Grid-Based method, the Dynamic Grid-Based method and the Region-Based method. In [TAN01], testing of this federate-based aggregation/disaggregation was limited to a dual federation and a single DDM scheme. In an effort to determine the scalability of aggregation/disaggregation, with three methods of DDM, we measure the communication overhead and analyze performance during a federation execution. We present the results of extensive testing, varying the number of aggregation/disaggregation requests, the number of multi-resolution federates participating in the federation, the number of objects, the number/size of the grids and report on the performance evlauation of our protocols using an extensive set of simulation experiments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Ottawa, Ottawa

    Azzedine Boukerche & Caron Dzermajko

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  1. Azzedine Boukerche
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  2. Caron Dzermajko
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Correspondence to Azzedine Boukerche.

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This work was partially supported by Grants from NSERC, Canada Research Chairs Program, Canada Foundation for Innovation, OIT/Distinguished Researcher Award.

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Boukerche, A., Dzermajko, C. Scalability and Performance Evaluation of DDM-Based Aggregation/Dissaggregation Protocols for Large-Scale Distributed Interactive Simulations Systems. J Supercomput 35, 259–276 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-006-4669-6

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