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Virginia Tech

A Distributed Approach to EpiFast using Apache Spark

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

EpiFast is a parallel algorithm for large-scale epidemic simulations, based on an interpretation of the stochastic disease propagation in a contact network. The original EpiFast implementation is based on a master-slave computation model with a focus on distributed memory using message-passing-interface (MPI). However, it suffers from few shortcomings with respect to scale of networks being studied. This thesis addresses these shortcomings and provides two different implementations: Spark-EpiFast based on the Apache Spark big data processing engine and Charm-EpiFast based on the Charm++ parallel programming framework. The study focuses on exploiting features of both systems that we believe could potentially benefit in terms of performance and scalability. We present models of EpiFast specific to each system and relate algorithm specifics to several optimization techniques. We also provide a detailed analysis of these optimizations through a range of experiments that consider scale of networks and environment settings we used. Our analysis shows that the Spark-based version is more efficient than the Charm++ and MPI-based counterparts. To the best of our knowledge, ours is one of the preliminary efforts of using Apache Spark for epidemic simulations. We believe that our proposed model could act as a reference for similar large-scale epidemiological simulations exploring non-MPI or MapReduce-like approaches.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Science
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Computer Science and Applications
Department dc:contributor.department
Computer Science
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2015

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Kannan, Vijayasarathy
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Marathe, Madhav Vishnu
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Marathe, Achla
  • Vullikanti, Anil Kumar S.
  • Chen, Jiangzhuo

Subjects

dc:subject × 3

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
vt_gsexam:5928
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/55272

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Kannan, Vijayasarathy. A Distributed Approach to EpiFast using Apache Spark. masters thesis, Virginia Tech, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/55272