DISTributed systems EMulator

Distem is a distributed systems emulator. When doing research on Cloud, High Performance Computing, or Edge system, it can be used to transform an homogenenous cluster (composed of identical nodes) into an experimental platform where nodes have different performance, and are linked together through a complex network topology, making it the ideal tool to benchmark applications targetting such environments.

Key features:

  • Uses modern Linux technology to steal resources from your applications
  • Easy to install: on Grid’5000, you only need a few minutes to start to use Distem
  • Easy to use: simple command-line interface for beginners, REST API for more experienced users
  • Efficient and scalable: start a 15000-nodes virtual topology in less than 10 minutes

The current version of Distem is version 1.5, released on 2020-09-08. Distem is released under GPLv3 and the source can be found on the GitLab project page.

To start using Distem, follow the tutorial.

Mailing list & contact information

Distem is developed by the RESIST team at LORIA and INRIA Nancy - Grand Est, mainly by Alexandre Merlin, Emmanuel Jeanvoine, Luc Sarzyniec and Lucas Nussbaum. While it is a full rewrite, Distem is built on the foundations of Wrekavoc.

To report issues, use the GitLab project page. You can also contact Lucas Nussbaum at lucas.nussbaum@loria.fr.

Reference publication

Publications on Distem internals

Publications using Distem