Simulation of a multimedia client/server system

In this paper, a simulation model for a multimedia client/server system is presented. The described approach does not only focus on partial performance simulation of subsystems but on a complete model ranging from client/server hardware and software components to application and network protocol implementations. Starting with the motivation for this work, a presentation of the overall system design is given. Each simulation component is discussed and described in detail. Hardware models comprise storage robotics and disk mechanics, software models include server admission controller and scheduler. Network models cover SCSI (Small Computers Serial Interface), TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) and client/server application protocols. A large set of system parameters allows the model to be tuned. The simulation results can be used to predict the system performance, discovering potential bottlenecks or oversized components for a given task before the real system is built.