The Art of Simulation: Migrating from DES to PDES A. Bozinaki, I. E. Venetis, N. A. Livanos, E. N. Zois and A. Nassiopoulos Research & Development Telecommunications Laboratory, Electronics Dept, Technological and Educational Institute of Athens, Aigaleo, Greece, email: nassiop@teiath.gr Abstract This paper presents in brief the history and research efforts used for the subsequent development of a high-speed simulator. A number of modern applications, ranging from medicine to space applications, use a common simulation infrastructure layer based on the Discrete Event Simulation (DES) ideas. However, the recent trends in computing will inevitably exploit the multicore characteristics of modern CPUs, thus enabling the field of Parallel Discrete Event Simulation (PDES) techniques, in order to establish high simulation speed. Keywords Discrete Event Simulation, Parallel Event Simulation. 1. Introduction Nowadays, science and technology are proliferated and humans are in deep need of knowing, a priori, the results of any prospective products, ranging from commerce, up to dedicated military applications. This is the most important reason why simulation has emerged as an independent computer science topic and gained substantial acknowledgement in all aspects of science and industry. Simulators are applications which have been created for accomplishing specific tasks, e.g, simulating a probable damage of a satellite in outer space, simulating the Large Hadrons Collider or simulating the effects that a nuclear accident may cause. According to literature, the general definition of simulation includes “the procedure of creating a real system’s model whose purpose is to conduct experiments with the model either for understanding the behavior of the system or for estimating varied strategies for the operation of the system”. In straightforward relation with the simulation procedure is the Model, which can be defined as an entity that is used to represent some other entity for a specific purpose. In general, models are simplified abstractions, which embrace only the scope and level of detail needed to satisfy specific study objectives.