Hierarchical modeling in a graphical simulation system

Abstract

Hierarchical performance modeling allows the modeler to create models either in a top-down process or in a bottom-up process. In reality, modelers use a combination of both techniques. To support this hierarchical performance modeling in a graphical system requires the functionality to create, view, edit, and store the graphical networks of individual submodels, to graphically link the submodels to other modeling elements, to graphically replace submodels with other modeling elements, and to view the results, including animation, for the overall model and each submodel instance. The Research Queuing Package Modeling Environment (RESQME), a graphical workstation environment for iteratively constructing, running, and analyzing hierarchical models of resource contention systems, is used to illustrate the hierarchical modeling methodology. A simplified example is shown to demonstrate the use of hierarchical modeling.