jEQN: a Java-based language for the distributed simulation of queueing networks

The increasing pervasiveness of large scale networks is bringing distributed simulation (DS) to the reach of academic and business communities besides the traditional military ones. This gives academics and industry the advantage of using larger execution platforms and of reusing locally implemented simulation models as building blocks of much larger models. Developing a distributed simulator however requires learning how to use a given DS standard (such as HLA), that implies a non-negligible amount of effort. This paper addresses the problem of defining a language that can equivalently support the development of local or distributed simulators, making the use of the DS standard transparent. The HLA standard is dealt with, but the method can be extended to any other DS standard. The language (called JEQN) addresses the extended queueing network (EQN) domain, and thus it also includes primitives to facilitate the development of queueing network distributed simulators