The way to develop software towards exascale computing

This paper preliminarily discusses how to develop software towards exascale computing. Two typical development models are studied, one is “all-round contract” which means all the functional modules are implemented in a single framework, and the other is “co-design” which using the existing packages to realize functional modules. As a widely used CFD software whose numerical solving module is implemented in a typical “all-round contract” manner, OpenFOAM is concerned in this work. After redesigning and reimplementing the solving module of OpenFOAM in a “co-design” way by inserting PETSc, the source lines of the code decrease dramatically, which improves the development efficiency. Tests of two CFD benchmark cases and a practical large-scale case on a 128-node cluster show that the newly implemented numerical module also has a higher solving efficiency, compared with the original numerical module in OpenFOAM. Therefore, it is recommended to develop software in a “co-design” manner towards exascale computing, and softwares already implemented in “all-round contract” way should also be reconsidered.