Distributed Simulation of Complex and Scalable Systems: From Models to the Cloud

Alife in the Clouds: A Short Review of Applications of Artificial Life to Cloud Computing and Back

“…Cloud computing, for instance, offers the possibility of instantiating and using computing nodes at a cost that is a fraction of buying them, or even at no cost if you land an academic grant or your problem falls within the boundaries of the free tier cloud hosts offer. Using these nodes in the same way, we used computers in a data center or under our desktop, it is straightforward to port a parallel implementation of whatever algorithm to a cloud-based one; this presents some challenges and has in fact been addressed in several papers (Radenski et al, 2013;Leclerc et al, 2016); for instance (Medel et al, 2017) studies how to create models of complex systems using cloud resources (Gutierrez-Garcia and Sim 2010; Merelo-Guervós et al, 2011;Meri et al, 2013) presents a system that uses free cloud storage services as a device for interchanging individuals in an evolutionary algorithm; Kopp (2016) reviews technologies that are, in general, available for simulation, focusing on defense applications; however, simulation of adaptive behavior and agent-based systems form the basis of artificial life and it could be applied to it. Several other artificial life systems that use the cloud for storage are presented in a recent review (Taylor et al, 2016).…”