Our own tools
SDI DB: the database behind our simulation models
Most of what a model knows is data: machine rates, failure and repair times, shift schedules, routes, order policies. SDI DB keeps all of it in linked tables that the model reads, so you update the data, not the model.
Why database-driven
Why keep a model's knowledge in a database
Change data, not models
A new line, a faster filler or a new route is a table edit. The model structure stays the same and keeps its validation.
Decades of knowledge in one place
Failure modes, repair distributions, process rates and shift schedules live in tables people can read and check, not buried in model logic.
Linked, so it stays consistent
Tables link to each other as parent and child. Rename a location and every machine and failure record that points to it follows.
History
From our Extend database library to today
SDI's original database library for Extend, co-created by David Parsons, was the origin of ExtendSim's Database library. It changed how large models were built: the data moved out of the model and into tables.
Database-driven models have carried some of our longest-running work, including the DOE equipment rehab model, whose database-intensive design is described in a 2006 Winter Simulation Conference paper by the Y-12 team, and the SDI Supply Chain Builder models, which read their networks from SDI DB tables.
Our current engines read the same format. SDI DB is a tool we use on your project; we don't sell it.
Try it
Cloud DB Viewer
Explore ten real ExtendSim-compatible simulation databases in your browser, and edit any cell as you go. No license and no software to install. You can share a table with your team by URL.
Open the viewerTell us your problem
Is your model's knowledge trapped in the model?
Tell us what your model holds and where the data lives today. We'll show you what a database-driven version would look like.
- A straight answer on whether simulation is the right tool
- Which tool fits, even if it isn't one we use every day
- A rough scope and timeline, before any commitment