Simulation tools are popular in the design and study of communication systems and networks. The implementation of analytic distributed simulations commonly require a central entity to support certain tasks (e.g., time management). The HLA/RTI uses a central runtime component (CRC) to this end. Because of network variability, the location of the CRC with respect to the federates may severely influence the federation execution performance. The paper proposes the optimal migration of a federation CRC to achieve better execution times. To achieve this goal, it applies an iterative search mechanism and proposes suitable cost functions to determine the optimal host. The process involves probing the network at selected nodes for quality-of-service metrics and deciding the search steps. Finally, a simulation study supports the investigation by quantifying the time required to complete a typical Monte Carlo experiment. Operational metrics of the search process are reported. ©2009 IEEE.