A Web-Based Visual Simulation Architecture

AbstractIn recent years, we have witnessed a major paradigm shift from treating software as a shrink-wrapped product to using software as a service over a network. Two platforms have emerged as a result of this paradigm shift: Java Platform Enterprise Edition (EE) and the Microsoft.NET Framework. This paper presents a client-server web-based architecture for the development and execution of visual simulations using the Java 2 Platform EE, eXtensible Markup Language, and Scalable Vector Graphics standards. The architecture is created to be modular, extensible, and scalable for many concurrent users. We developed a Web-based Queuing System Simulation System as an example application and implementation of our architecture. WebQS3 (http://sunfish.cs.vt.edu/webQS3/) was used for evaluating different architectural design strategies, testing our ideas, assessing performance, and illustrating our architecture. The architecture is applicable for discrete-event simulations that can be visualized.

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