The design of trilinos

Abstract

The Trilinos Project is an effort to facilitate the design, development, integration and ongoing support of mathematical software libraries within an object-oriented framework for the solution of large-scale, complex multi-physics engineering and scientific problems. Trilinos is a two-level software structure, designed around a collection of packages. Each package focuses on a particular area of research, such as linear and nonlinear solver or algebraic preconditioners, and is usually developed by a small team of experts in this particular area of research. Packages exist underneath the Trilinos top level, which provides a common look-and-feel, including configuration, documentation, licensing, and bug-tracking. In this paper we present the Trilinos design and an overview of the Trilinos packages. We discuss about the package interoperability and interdependence, and the Trilinos software engineering environment for developers. We also discuss how Trilinos facilitates high-quality software engineering practices that are increasingly required from simulation software. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.