The Scalability-Efficiency/Maintainability-Portability Trade-off in Simulation Software Engineering: Examples and a Preliminary Systematic Literature Review

TL;DR

This paper explores the core trade-off in simulation software engineering between scalability/efficiency and maintainability/portability, reviewing existing literature and highlighting the need for empirical metrics and future research directions.

Contribution

It provides a systematic review of the SE/MP trade-off in simulation software, summarizing existing solutions and identifying gaps for future empirical development.

Findings

Evidence of the SE/MP trade-off in literature

Initial solution approaches identified

Need for quantitative metrics emphasized

Abstract

Large-scale simulations play a central role in science and the industry. Several challenges occur when building simulation software, because simulations require complex software developed in a dynamic construction process. That is why simulation software engineering (SSE) is emerging lately as a research focus. The dichotomous trade-off between scalability and efficiency (SE) on the one hand and maintainability and portability (MP) on the other hand is one of the core challenges. We report on the SE/MP trade-off in the context of an ongoing systematic literature review (SLR). After characterizing the issue of the SE/MP trade-off using two examples from our own research, we (1) review the 33 identified articles that assess the trade-off, (2) summarize the proposed solutions for the trade-off, and (3) discuss the findings for SSE and future work. Overall, we see evidence for the SE/MP trade-off and first solution approaches. However, a strong empirical foundation has yet to be established; general quantitative metrics and methods supporting software developers in addressing the trade-off have to be developed. We foresee considerable future work in SSE across scientific communities.