Cactus: Issues for Sustainable Simulation Software

TL;DR

This paper discusses the evolution and sustainability of the Cactus Framework, an open-source platform for scientific high-performance computing, highlighting its historical resilience and future challenges.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive history of Cactus and insights into maintaining sustainable scientific software amidst hardware and community changes.

Findings

Cactus has persisted since 1996 through hardware and community changes.

The framework's modular design supports adaptability and longevity.

Lessons learned inform future sustainability strategies.

Abstract

The Cactus Framework is an open-source, modular, portable programming environment for the collaborative development and deployment of scientific applications using high-performance computing. Its roots reach back to 1996 at the National Center for Supercomputer Applications and the Albert Einstein Institute in Germany, where its development jumpstarted. Since then, the Cactus framework has witnessed major changes in hardware infrastructure as well as its own community. This paper describes its endurance through these past changes and, drawing upon lessons from its past, also discusses future