Extending the Concept of Component Interfaces: Experience with the Integrated Plasma Simulator
- ORNL
In the component approach, components are said to interact through well-defined interfaces. Conventionally, these interfaces are based on method signatures which define the syntax, if not the semantics of the interface. However in many cases, this does not encompass all of the interactions a component has with its peers. In the Integrated Plasma Simulator (IPS), a framework for coupled simulation of fusion plasmas developed by the Center for Simulation of RF Wave Interactions with Magnetohydrodynamics (SWIM), we find that components interact through files and through an event service in addition to the usual method calls. In this report, we discuss the motivations for the design of the IPS and our experience with it. We further consider whether the concept of a component interface needs to be extended, and how it might be done. Component-based software engineering (CBSE) has allowed applications to grow in size, scale and power, by coupling components along well-defined interfaces. Many groups have come together to provide rules and standards for component and interface definitions. General purpose component architectures have been designed for business, and scientific computing, while domain specific component frameworks have been created in many domains, including climate modeling, rocket simulation, and engineering. In each architecture, component interfaces, typically implemented as method invocations, are the only ways that are mentioned for components to interact with each other and the outside world. However, components may not always communicate over their interfaces. They can interact with software entities in many other ways including sharing files and publish/subscribe systems. In this paper we consider two ways in which components interact without method invocation in a component framework, how the component interface can be extended to describe these interactions, and the implications on the greater component community. The rest of the paper continues as follows: first we briefly describe the fusion simulation framework that serves as the basis for the discussion (Sec. 2), followed by a description of non-interface interactions (Sec. 3), a discussion of how to extend to the component interface (Sec. 4) and finally some conclusions (Sec. 5).
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC05-00OR22725
- OSTI ID:
- 982171
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: The 2009 Workshop on Component-Based High Performance Computing, Portland, OR, USA, 20091115, 20091115
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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