GoldSim was designed to provide a highly efficient simulation framework for use on a single Windows personal computer. For most applications, running your GoldSim application on a single machine will be sufficient. For highly complex models, however, running Monte Carlo simulations on a single machine could become impractical. For example, if each realization took one minute to complete, then 1000 realizations would take over 16 hours.

Fortunately, Monte Carlo simulation is an ideal parallel processing application, and to take advantage of this, the GoldSim Distributed Processing Module allows you to combine the power of multiple processors (typically connected over a network) to carry out a simulation involving multiple realizations.

This is accomplished by a having a Controller GoldSim executable connect to any number of Client GoldSim executables installed on separate computers. The Controller executable assigns and sends individual realizations to the Clients. Each Client carries out its assigned realization, sends the results to the Controller, and then makes itself available to work on another realization. Once all of the realizations have been completed, the Controller combines all of the results just as if the entire simulation had been carried out on the Controller machine. Note that Clients do not require purchase of a separate GoldSim license, since the free GoldSim Player can act as a Client.

Although the Controller and Clients will typically be connected via a Local Area Network (LAN), they can also communicate via a Wide Area Network (WAN) or even the Internet. In general, the speed of the simulation is proportional to the number of available Clients. GoldSim customers have utilized the GoldSim Distributed Processing Module to access hundreds of Clients.

Versions

The Distributed Processing Module is available in two versions:

• GoldSim DP comes bundled with GoldSim, and limits the number of Clients to four
• GoldSim DP Plus allows an unlimited number of Clients