Analytical technique for accelerating the simulation of packet networks

Conventional simulation of packet-switched networks models each individual packet through the network, such that each packet's arrival at, or departure from, a network element forms an event. However, statistical considerations mean that very large numbers of packets have to be simulated to guarantee the accuracy of these results, and this tends to result in very long simulation times, often amounting to many hours of 'real' time just to simulate a few minutes of 'simulated' time. The authors present a technique for the acceleration of simulation studies of packet-based networks. This uses a mathematical technique for forcing equivalence in queueing systems; i.e. forcing them to have the same statistics even when one will require far fewer events to simulate. The results indicate that this technique shows great promise as a method of achieving simulation acceleration, providing accuracy as well as speed-up. Furthermore, it can be used in conjunction with a number of pre-existing acceleration methodologies.