An Overview of the Trilinos Project

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 addresses two fundamental issues of developing software for these problems: (i) Providing a streamlined process and set of tools for development of new algorithmic implementations and (ii) promoting interoperability of independently developed software. Trilinos uses a two-level software structure designed around collections of packages. A Trilinos package is an integral unit usually developed by a small team of experts in a particular algorithms area such as algebraic preconditioners, nonlinear solvers, etc. Packages exist underneath the Trilinos top level, which provides a common look-and-feel, including configuration, documentation, licensing, and bug-tracking. Here we present the overall Trilinos design, describing our use of abstract interfaces and default concrete implementations. We discuss the services that Trilinos provides to a prospective package and how these services are used by various packages. We also illustrate how packages can be combined to rapidly develop new algorithms. Finally, we discuss how Trilinos facilitates highquality software engineering practices that are increasingly required from simulation software.

@article{HeBaHoHo05,  
author = {Michael A. Heroux and Roscoe A. Bartlett and Vicki E. Howle and Robert J. Hoekstra and Jonathan J. Hu and Tamara G. Kolda and others}, 
title = {An Overview of the {Trilinos} Project}, 
journal = {ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software}, 
volume = {31}, 
number = {3}, 
pages = {397--423}, 
month = {September}, 
year = {2005},
doi = {10.1145/1089014.1089021},
}