Cloud computing simulators: A comprehensive review

Nowadays, cloud computing is an emerging technology due to virtualization and providing low price services on pay-as per-use basis. One of the main challenges in this regard is how to evaluate different models of the cloud resources usage and the ability of cloud systems based on QoS constraints. Experimentation in a real environment is very difficult and expensive. Therefore, many works pay much attention on designing cloud simulation frameworks that only cover a subset of the different components. Consequently, choosing the right tools to use needs a deep comparative analysis of available simulators based on different features. In this paper, we present a comparative analysis of 33 tools for cloud environments. This review will enable the readers to compare the prominent simulators in terms of the supported model, architecture, and high-level features. Subsequently, it provides recommendations regarding the choice of the most suitable tool for researchers, providers, and managers of cloud environment. Eight common simulators are appraised in a practical way based on various scenarios in order to evaluate their performance. Finally, it addresses the open issues and future challenges for further research.