Profiling Energy Consumption in Distributed Simulations

An energy profile indicates the amount of energy consumed by different parts of a parallel or distributed simulation program. Creating energy profiles is not straightforward because high precision, low overhead energy measurement mechanisms may not be available, and it is not straightforward to determine the amount of energy consumed by different hardware components such as the CPU, memory system, or communication circuits that are operating concurrently throughout the execution of the distributed simulation. Techniques to create energy profiles of distributed simulation programs are described. A model is proposed that differentiates the energy consumed by the distributed simulation engine versus simulation application code, and energy consumed for computation versus that required for communication. A methodology and techniques are described to create energy profiles for these aspects of the distributed simulation. A study is described to illustrate this methodology to profile a distributed simulation synchronized by the Chandy/Misra/Bryant synchronization algorithm for a queuing network simulation. Empirical data are presented to validate the energy profile that is obtained.