Experiences Instrumenting a Distributed Molecular Dynamics Program

As cluster computing becomes increasingly more accessible, the need for tools to simplify the development and use of parallel simulations grows proportionally. One class of tools, steering and visualization middle-ware, promises to assist in code development as well as increase the value of the final simulation produced. In this paper we discuss this middle-ware and our experiences instrumenting a parallel computation. We present the impact of the instrumentation and some ideas for additional functionality.