Service‐oriented simulation using web ontology

Commercial‐off‐the‐Shelf (COTS) Simulation Packages (CSPs) have proved popular in a wider industrial setting. Reuse of Simulation Component (SC) models by collaborating organisations or divisions is restricted, however, by the same semantic issues that restrict the inter‐organisation use of other software services. Semantic models, in the form of ontology, utilised by a web‐service‐based discovery and deployment architecture provide one approach to support simulation model reuse. Semantic interoperation is achieved using domain‐grounded SC ontology to identify reusable components and subsequently loaded into a CSP, and locally or remotely executed. The work is based on a health service simulation that addresses the transportation of blood. The ontology‐engineering framework and discovery architecture provide a novel approach to inter‐organisation simulation, uncovering domain semantics and providing a less intrusive mechanism for component reuse. The resulting web of component models and simulation execution environments present a nascent approach to simulation grids.