fenics team mailing list archive

[Johan Jansson <jjan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi!

The upcoming FEniCS conference is a good opportunity for a directed push 
in the development in FEniCS. There has been activity in parallel 
computing in FEniCS over the last two years, but the critical mass to 
make parallel performance an integral part of FEniCS has not yet been 
attained.

I would like to float the idea of making parallel performance the target 
for the conference. A realistic goal could be strong near-linear scaling 
up to ~100 CPUs for a non-trivial PDE (e.g. Navier-Stokes).

Currently there are two branches of parallel development: 1. a branch 
based on DOLFIN 0.8.0 (the work of Niclas Jansson at CTL/KTH) and 2. the 
trunk of DOLFIN (joint effort by DOLFIN developers to integrate Niclas' 
branch with other parallel work and DOLFIN updates). The performance 
results are already there in 1, and progress has already been made in 
the integration in 2 (helped nicely by Anders Logg hosting a week of 
code in Smögen this fall).

Parallel computing is one of the key research areas of the CTL group at 
KTH, and we intend to put significant effort into reaching the target, 
given that this strategy is adopted. I think by making parallel 
performance top priority in the project, it would also be a realistic 
target, and open up the project to new applications, more exposure, etc.

Best,
 Johan