Asynchronous parallel discrete event simulation

Complex models may have model components distributed over a network and generally require significant execution times. The field of parallel and distributed simulation has grown over the past fifteen years to accommodate the need of simulation the complex models using a distributed versus sequential method. In particular, asynchronous parallel discrete event simulation (PDES) has been widely studied, and yet we envision greater acceptance of this methodology as more readers are exposed to PDES introductions that carefully integrate real-world applications. With this in mind, we present two key methodologies (conservative and optimistic) which have been adopted as solutions to PDES systems. We discuss PDES terminology and methodology under the umbrella of the personal communications services application.