There's a new paper about using OSGi (Equinox) and ECF remote services to create a transport-independent, service-oriented, simulation framework. Their paper is here.

I have thought for some time that the combination of OSGi, with standardized, open, remote/distributed services (as is provided by OSGI remote services and ECF's implementation of that spec)...would be a strong simulation environment, and now Martin Petzold, Oliver Ullrich, and Ewald Speckenmeyer have shown that thought to have some merit.

As well, the authors have made their own framework available as open source.

Thanks to Martin, Oliver, and Ewald for doing and reporting some terrific work...and to the ECF community for providing support.

From http://eclipseecf.blogspot.com/2011/10/simulation-using-osgi-ecf-remote.html