Scalable parallel and distributed simulation of an epidemic on a graph

Abstract

We propose an algorithm to simulate Markovian SIS epidemics with homogeneous rates and pairwise interactions on a fixed undirected graph, assuming a distributed memory model of parallel programming and limited bandwidth. We offer an implementation of the algorithm in the form of pseudocode in the Appendix. Also, we analyze its algorithmic complexity and its induced dynamical system. Finally, we design experiments to show its scalability and faithfulness. We believe this algorithm offers a way of scaling out, allowing researchers to run simulation tasks at a scale that was not accessible before. Furthermore, we believe this algorithm lays a solid foundation for extensions to simulating more advanced epidemic processes and graph dynamics in other fields.