We investigate the performance of a global magnetohydrodynamic (MHD)simulation during an event that occured on Feb 18, 2004, when there is exceptionally good coverage of spacecraft observations of the near-Earth space. Cluster spacecraft crossed the magnetopause into the magnetosheath, GOES measured the inner magnetosphere, while Geotail was observing the near-tail and Wind the far-tail regions. The GUMICS-4 global MHD simulation is given the solar wind parameters from ACE spacecraft as input, and the simulation outputs the plasma parameters in the near-Earth space. The simulation plasma parameters are compared against the spacecraft observations. In particular we investigate the global consequences of several substorms observed in the tail and the ionosphere.