A MODULAR SIMULATION-BASED MBSE APPROACH APPLIED TO A CLOUD-BASED SYSTEM

The current state of the practice of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) methodologies, system specification models, and executable system simulations lack the capability of simulation execution within a single system specification model with the fidelity required for time-dependent simulation towards the design, analysis, and optimization of complex software-based systems. In this paper we develop and demonstrate a modular simulation-based MBSE approach capable of filling this gap. To accomplish this within a single system specification model we embed a combination of modeled simulation activities, opaque behaviors, and simulation specific functions to execute and manage the time-dependent simulation variable arrays. We applied our MBSE approach on the design and analysis of a hybrid on-prem/cloud data system example that meets the complex, software-based, and time-dependent requirements this approach was built to solve. The results show that our approach produces a modular and time-dependent simulation-enabled system specification model that accurately estimates cloud-based system performance and storage cost as a function of time. Emergent system behaviors observed from the simulation results indicate the system model provides foundational design and analysis capabilities that are required for applying system optimization algorithms. Copyright © 2024 by Thomas M. Booth and Sudipto Ghosh. Permission granted to INCOSE to publish and use.