Due to their popularity and widespread utility; discrete event simulators have been the subject of much research. Systems researchers have built many types of simulation kernels and libraries, while the languages community has designed numerous languages specifically for simulation. In this dissertation, I propose a new approach for constructing simulators that leverages virtual machines and thus combines the advantages of both the traditional systems-based and language-based approaches to simulator construction. I present JiST, a Java-based simulation engine that exemplifies virtual machine-based simulation. JiST executes discrete event simulations by embedding simulation time semantics directly into the Java execution model. The system provides all the standard benefits that the modern Java runtime affords. In addition, JiST is efficient, out-performing existing highly optimized simulation runtimes, and inherently flexible, capable of transparently performing cross-cutting program transformations and optimizations at the bytecode level. I illustrate the practicality of the JiST approach through the construction of SWANS, a scalable wireless ad hoc network simulator that can simulate million node wireless networks, which is more than an order of magnitude in scale over what existing simulators can achieve on equivalent hardware and at the same level of detail.
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