In the current project we propose to develop an object oriented simulation environment to study different architectural configurations for servers. We will also develop detailed workload models from various application domains such as OLTP, Video-on-Demand, Decision Support etc. for which the servers are intended. These application workloads will be used to study the performance and the reliability and availability features in the sever designs. In particular, our primary focus will be to study different approaches for the I/O subsystem configurations in the server, although the environment will be general enough to study other components in a server including the network, processing nodes etc.
The OO design for the simulation environment will permit easy replacement of one module with another for a specific function without affecting other components, thereby enabling rapid evaluation of alternatives. For example, an ATM type interconnect could be replaced by a mesh-based interconnect without a need to change any other parts of the environment. Finally, this design allows studying a component of interest in various degrees of detail while keeping the other component simulations at a coarse-level for a faster simulation time.