SimServer: Simulated Data Streams on Demand via the Web

Simulated data streams have long been employed to support prototyping and experimentation. These data streams create the operational context within which systems and concepts are demonstrated, tested, integrated, and exercised. Although this context is essential for success, resources are better spent on the focus of the project—not on the simulation support. But that's rarely how it works—applying traditional simulation is expensive. It takes detailed planning, scenario generation, and interface development to provide the simulation capability. Then simulation computers, networks, and knowledgeable operators must be coordinated to execute the simulations. Often, similar work has already been done elsewhere, but there is no clear path to finding and leveraging related work. In this paper we will describe SimServer: an initiative established at MITRE in 2004 to address this situation by offering a means to quickly and cost-effectively meet basic simulation support needs across the company's work programs. By employing a select set of web-inspired computing techniques, SimServer is providing on-demand access to simulated data streams. This means that projects don't need to buy their own simulation support computers, manage the additional network connections, or hire simulation operators. At the SimServer web site, consumers plan, configure, execute, and monitor their data streams. Rather than developing capabilities from scratch, projects use the site to browse available simulation services and reuse or modify them. This common repository of tailorable, on-demand simulation services frees more project dollars to be devoted to prototyping and experimentation activities, facilitating broader and deeper experimentation programs that deliver richer insights for shaping the future of fielded systems.