A Modeler-Friendly API for ABM Partitioning

Abstract

Agent Based Modeling (ABM) is a popular technique for dealing with complex systems. An ABM usually consists of many autonomous, interacting agents, and modelers are interested in the system-level, emergent behavior of these agents. In developing an ABM, scalability is one of most critical factors for validation. Looking for an acceptable solution, parallelization often comes into play. However, writing a parallel version of an ABM simulation is at least as hard as developing the original model, and usually takes an expert of the area. This paper demonstrates our ongoing developments based on the idea that ABMs can be classified on the basis of their interior communication topology. We have developed six reusable parallel simulation schemas that can be instantiated with simulation-specific code using the Java language. Our aim was to give general, domain independent support for ABM modelers, where the parallel piece of code is completely transparent. The hope is that ABM modelers can treat their parallel system in almost the same way as they do the original. The paper details our approach as well as the implementation and, towards the end, shows performance results and how one of the templates works in a GRID system.