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Title: Build Less Code, Deliver More Science: An Experience Report on Composing Scientific Environments using Component-based and Commodity Software Platforms

Abstract

Modern scientific software is daunting in its diversity and complexity. From massively parallel simulations running on the world’s largest supercomputers, to visualizations and user support environments that manage ever growing complex data collections, the challenges for software engineers are plentiful. While high performance simulators are necessarily specialized codes to maximize performance on specific supercomputer architectures, we argue the vast majority of supporting infrastructure, data management and analysis tools can leverage commodity open source and component-based technologies. This approach can significantly drive down the effort and costs of building complex, collaborative scientific user environments, as well as increase their reliability and extensibility. In this paper we describe our experiences in creating an initial user environment for scientists involved in modeling the detailed effects of climate change on the environment of selected geographical regions. Our approach composes the user environment using the Velo scientific knowledge management platform and the MeDICi Integration Framework for scientific workflows. These established platforms leverage component-based technologies and extend commodity open source platforms with abstractions and capabilities that make them amenable for broad use in science. Using this approach we were able to deliver an operational user environment capable of running thousands of simulations in a 7 monthmore » period, and achieve significant software reuse.« less

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States). Computational Sciences and Math Division
  2. Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, (Canada).
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
1095427
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA-94925
DOE Contract Number:  
AC05-76RL01830
Resource Type:
Conference
Resource Relation:
Conference: Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on Component-Based Software Engineering (CBSE 2013), June 17-21, 2013, Vancouver, Canada, 159-168,
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

Citation Formats

Gorton, Ian, Liu, Yan, Lansing, Carina S., Elsethagen, Todd O., and Kleese van Dam, Kerstin. Build Less Code, Deliver More Science: An Experience Report on Composing Scientific Environments using Component-based and Commodity Software Platforms. United States: N. p., 2013. Web.
Gorton, Ian, Liu, Yan, Lansing, Carina S., Elsethagen, Todd O., & Kleese van Dam, Kerstin. Build Less Code, Deliver More Science: An Experience Report on Composing Scientific Environments using Component-based and Commodity Software Platforms. United States.
Gorton, Ian, Liu, Yan, Lansing, Carina S., Elsethagen, Todd O., and Kleese van Dam, Kerstin. 2013. "Build Less Code, Deliver More Science: An Experience Report on Composing Scientific Environments using Component-based and Commodity Software Platforms". United States.
@article{osti_1095427,
title = {Build Less Code, Deliver More Science: An Experience Report on Composing Scientific Environments using Component-based and Commodity Software Platforms},
author = {Gorton, Ian and Liu, Yan and Lansing, Carina S. and Elsethagen, Todd O. and Kleese van Dam, Kerstin},
abstractNote = {Modern scientific software is daunting in its diversity and complexity. From massively parallel simulations running on the world’s largest supercomputers, to visualizations and user support environments that manage ever growing complex data collections, the challenges for software engineers are plentiful. While high performance simulators are necessarily specialized codes to maximize performance on specific supercomputer architectures, we argue the vast majority of supporting infrastructure, data management and analysis tools can leverage commodity open source and component-based technologies. This approach can significantly drive down the effort and costs of building complex, collaborative scientific user environments, as well as increase their reliability and extensibility. In this paper we describe our experiences in creating an initial user environment for scientists involved in modeling the detailed effects of climate change on the environment of selected geographical regions. Our approach composes the user environment using the Velo scientific knowledge management platform and the MeDICi Integration Framework for scientific workflows. These established platforms leverage component-based technologies and extend commodity open source platforms with abstractions and capabilities that make them amenable for broad use in science. Using this approach we were able to deliver an operational user environment capable of running thousands of simulations in a 7 month period, and achieve significant software reuse.},
doi = {},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1095427}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Jul 17 00:00:00 EDT 2013},
month = {Wed Jul 17 00:00:00 EDT 2013}
}

Conference:
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