Design and performance aspects of a computational fluid dynamics computational steering application

Computational steering is a new alternative approach to classical high performance computing studies. In contrast to the traditional pipeline of separated preprocessing, computation and postprocessing steps computational steering joins these into one simultaneous work flow. This paper will describe a computational steering environment enabling its user to visualize simulation results on-the-fly and to interact with the running simulation. The main modules constituting the computational steering application, i.e. the simulation kernel, preprocessing, postprocessing and steering, as well as the communication layout between them will be introduced. The main focus will be laid on the optimization of the data flow between these components.