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The Cactus Framework and Toolkit: Design and Applications

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Book cover High Performance Computing for Computational Science — VECPAR 2002 (VECPAR 2002)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2565))

Abstract

We describe Cactus, a framework for building a variety of computing applications in science and engineering, including astrophysics, relativity and chemical engineering.We first motivate by example the need for such frameworks to support multi-platform, high performance applications across diverse communities. We then describe the design of the latest release of Cactus (Version 4.0) a complete rewrite of earlier versions, which enables highly modular, multi-language, parallel applications to be developed by single researchers and large collaborations alike. Making extensive use of abstractions, we detail how we are able to provide the latest advances in computational science, such as interchangeable parallel data distribution and high performance IO layers, while hiding most details of the underlying computational libraries from the application developer. We survey how Cactus 4.0 is being used by various application communities, and describe how it will also enable these applications to run on the computational Grids of the near future.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik, Am Mühlenberg 1, 14476, Golm, Germany

    Tom Goodale, Gabrielle Allen, Gerd Lanfermann, Thomas Radke & Edward Seidel

  2. Departament de Física, Universitat de les Illes Balears, E-07071, Palma de Mallorca, Spain

    Joan Massó

  3. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA

    John Shalf

Authors
  1. Tom Goodale
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  2. Gabrielle Allen
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  3. Gerd Lanfermann
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  4. Joan Massó
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  5. Thomas Radke
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  6. Edward Seidel
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  7. John Shalf
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculdade de Engenharia da, Universidade do Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal

    José M. L. M. Palma  & A. Augusto Sousa  & 

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of Tennessee, 37996-1301, Knoxville, TN, USA

    Jack Dongarra

  3. Departamento de Sistemas Informáticos y Computación, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Camino de Vera, s/n, Apartado 22012, 46020, Valencia, Spain

    Vicente Hernández

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© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Goodale, T. et al. (2003). The Cactus Framework and Toolkit: Design and Applications. In: Palma, J.M.L.M., Sousa, A.A., Dongarra, J., Hernández, V. (eds) High Performance Computing for Computational Science — VECPAR 2002. VECPAR 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2565. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36569-9_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36569-9_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-00852-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-36569-3

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