A Performance-Based Comparison of Object-Oriented Simulation Tools

Abstract

This paper compares the performance and features of five different tools for object-oriented simulation. Three of the tools (MODSIM II, SES/workbench, and Sim++) are commercial products that are targeted exclusively at simulation work. Also examined are simulations in Smalltalk-80 and our own, non-commercial C++ simulation library, called MOOSE (MITRE Object-Oriented Simulation Executive). For each of the tools, we discuss the support for simulation, the support for object-oriented design and the degree to which these areas are effectively integrated. We report the results of performance testing of the tools using six concise benchmarks, each devised to test a specific feature, and one larger simulation, devised to compare general performance. Also included are partial results on ERIC, an object-oriented simulation tool developed at Rome Laboratories. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This paper was presented at the 1992 Object-Oriented Simulation Conference, part of the Society for Computer Simulation (SCS) Western Simulation Multiconference, held 20-22 January in Newport Beach, CA. A condensed version of the paper appears in the conference proceedings [Bensley 92]. The Sim++ code for one of our benchmarks (the bank simulation) was written by Brett Cui under support from the Software Engineering Core Project The following trademarks are used throughout the remainder of the document: * Butterfly is a trademark of BBN Advanced Computers, Inc. * Computing Surface is a trademark of Meiko Scientific Corporation. * Jade, Sim++, and TimeWarp are trademarks of Jade Simulations International Corporation. • MODSIM II and SIMGRAPHICS II are trademarks and service marks of CACI Products Company. * Sun-3 and Sun-4 are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. " Smalltalk-80 and Objectworks are trademarks

Resource Allocation in Distributed Memory Multiprocessing

“…MOOSE adds several classes (primarily the process class) which facilitate the development of process model, discrete event, object-oriented, thread-based simulations. For a more complete description of MOOSE, see [3].…”