A distributed computing environment for interdisciplinary applications

Abstract

AbstractPractical applications are generally interdisciplinary in nature. Current technology is well matured for addressing individual disciplines but not for interdisciplinary applications. Hence, there is a need to couple the capabilities of several different computational disciplines to address these interdisciplinary applications. One approach is to use coupled or multi‐physics software, which typically involves developing and validating the entire software spectrum for a specific application. This will be extremely time consuming thus delaying the delivery of crucial capability to the end‐user. The other approach is to integrate individual well‐matured computational technology discipline's software thus taking advantage of the existing scalable software, validation investments, and tremendous developments in computational science. This integrated approach requires a consistent data model, data format, data management, seamless data movement, and robust, modular, scalable coupling algorithms. To address these requirements, we have developed a new flexible data exchange mechanism for high‐performance computing (HPC) codes and tools, known as the eXtensibleData Model and Format (XDMF). XDMF is part of a larger effort known as the ‘Interdisciplinary Computing Environment’ (ICE). ICE provides computational engines with the data management, visualizations, and user interface tools necessary to exist in a modern computing environment. Instead of imposing a new programming paradigm on HPC codes, XDMF uses the existing concept of file I/O for distributed coordination. XDMF incorporates Network Distributed Global Memory (NDGM), Hierarchical Data Format version 5 (HDF5), and eXtensible Markup Language (XML) to provide a flexible yet efficient data exchange mechanism. This paper discusses the development and implementation of a distributed computing environment for interdisciplinary applications utilizing the concept of a common data hub. Also, the implementation of XDMF is demonstrated for a typical blast–structure interaction interdisciplinary application. Published in 2002 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.