A simulation infrastructure manager is a software component or service that manages compute, memory, and other resources required to run a simulation. Modern organizations have applications that digitally simulate or recreate real-world places and processes. Such simulation systems have to analyze a vast amount of visual and audio data to create immersive scenes. They may also require additional computing power to process real-time data changes and maintain simulation accuracy. A simulation infrastructure manager handles resource allocation tasks so the simulation application can run most efficiently.
What is spatial simulation?
A simulation infrastructure manager is the technology that supports the creation of detailed spatial simulations.
Spatial simulation is a computational modeling technique that digitally recreates complex systems with spatial or geographical components. It involves the creation of a virtual environment that mimics real-world behavior and allows the user to explore various scenarios.
The simulation considers various factors, such as the following:
- Environmental conditions
- Demographic characteristics
- Physical and chemical changes
The term spatial implies that the simulation model relies on time and space attributes when it interacts with other models or the virtual world. For example, metal cans could rust over time in a virtual environment and could be dented when hit with a hammer.
What are the benefits of a simulation infrastructure manager?
Here are some of the benefits of using a simulation infrastructure manager.
Simulate complex models
As the simulation’s complexity increases, the magnitude of compute resources required increases significantly. For example, simulating traffic flow for major cities or country-wide supply chains involves real-time interactions among hundreds of thousands of entities.
A simulation infrastructure manager allows developers to simulate complex systems by managing the underlying infrastructure. It distributes workloads across servers efficiently so developers can focus on the actual simulation.
Scale your simulations
A simulation infrastructure manager solves scaling problems. To do this, it divides your virtual world spatially and distributes the pieces across a cluster of compute instances that run in the cloud.
The compute instances work together to process the entire simulation world in parallel. Your simulation world appears as a single integrated space to everything in it and to all clients that connect to it.
You no longer have to simplify a simulation because of a hardware performance limit; you can instead add more compute capacity in the cloud.
Reduce simulation costs
Traditionally, organizations have had to provide expensive hardware and software infrastructure for developers to create and run simulations. This incurred hefty capital investments and ongoing maintenance costs.
By contrast, the simulation infrastructure manager runs in the cloud to manage resources efficiently. You pay for exactly what you use, and you can automatically scale up or down as required.
Reduce development time
Traditionally, developers have had to provision the modeling engine, memory modules, data analytics, and other setups before starting the visual simulation. They’ve also had to update configurations and make environment changes to keep up with technology. This has increased both development time and efforts.
Using a managed simulation infrastructure allows you to focus on developing simulation content and codes instead of maintenance tasks.
What are some use cases that require a simulation infrastructure manager?
A simulation infrastructure manager allows you to simulate complex scenarios affordably and easily. Next, we give some example use cases.
Event planning
A successful event relies on tight coordination between multiple parties and anticipation of uncertainties. Proper planning begins months or weeks before the event.
Event planners simulate various real-life scenarios, such as traffic conditions, guest turnouts, and delays, to prepare for potential outcomes and troubleshoot issues.
Emergency response
Emergencies, such as natural disasters, accidents, and fires, are dangerous and cause significant economic damage.
A simulation infrastructure manager allows first responders to replicate emergency situations and formulate appropriate responses. It also allows city managers to test existing response systems and ensure they’re ready for a possible real-life scenario.
Urban development
Urban planning requires consideration of various factors, including demographics, amenities, real estate, traffic, education, and environment.
Urban developers must anticipate the effects of different variables on the growth and sustainability of future populations. They use a simulation infrastructure manager to simulate a real-world environment via a mathematical model at scale to get realistic projections.
Training
A simulation infrastructure manager helps run training simulation programs such as flight simulation. With scalable computing capacity, the training software can include more parameters to reflect realistic conditions of operating an aircraft in real life.
Likewise, doctors in training simulate surgical procedures with the exact same circumstances by using the simulation infrastructure manager.
Game development
Game developers use a simulation infrastructure manager to test their works with realistic gameplay scenarios. They can introduce large numbers of game objects in virtual reality games and connect them to the game logic.
How does a simulation infrastructure manager work?
Instead of simulating the entire world, the simulation infrastructure manager runs multiple parallel simulations on the cloud.
Next, we describe the key characteristics and components of a simulation infrastructure manager.
Simulation grid
A simulated environment consists of moving or static entities such as cars and trees spread across a large area. The simulation infrastructure manager divides the simulated world into multiple squared sections. Each section, called a simulation grid, controls entities within its boundaries.
Spatial applications
Individual spatial applications control simulation grids and provide simulation logic to the entities. Each spatial application takes complete control of an area within the grid, called ownership area.
The simulation infrastructure manager provides each spatial application with sufficient computing resources to individually render images, process data, and perform other virtual simulation tasks. Several spatial applications might run from the same basic cloud computing unit, such as an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance.
Subscription area
A spatial application has a complete view of entities and the simulated environment within its ownership area. However, it might need awareness of entity events in other parts of the simulated world. In such cases, the spatial application creates a subscription area.
A subscription area allows the spatial application to receive events from an adjacent simulated area owned by other spatial applications. For example, an autonomous robot could use the subscription area to receive terrain information 100 feet in front of it.
Entity movement
In a simulated world, entities might move from one simulation grid to another. When an entity passes between different ownership areas, a new spatial application takes control of the entity.
Likewise, entities can also move between ownership areas controlled by spatial applications operating from different workers. In such cases, the simulation infrastructure manager handles the network communications to transfer the control to a new spatial application.
What are the key features to look for in a simulation infrastructure manager?
A good simulation infrastructure manager allows organizations to simulate complex scenarios effortlessly and includes some of these key features.
Managed infrastructure
Choose a simulation infrastructure manager that automatically provisions the necessary compute, networking, and data resources. This allows you to shorten the preparation time when you recreate physical world scenarios in the simulation world.
Customized application integration
Some simulation projects require custom applications to run alongside the spatial logic. In such cases, choose a simulation infrastructure manager that lets you upload your own simulation software and exchange data with the simulation code.
Automated spatial partitioning
Spatial partitioning divides your simulation world into multiple uniform segments. A robust simulation infrastructure manager does this automatically based on your predefined configurations.
Entity awareness support
An intelligent simulation infrastructure manager ensures that entities maintain spatial awareness despite being in different simulated grids. It stores global data in all spatial application instances. This allows entities to cross different simulation areas without losing context and spatial awareness.
