Work Plans

The chart below describes five major phases in ESMF development, which correspond with major version increments. The ESMF team has completed the first two of these. We began implementation in 2002 with a prototype (v1) that helped to define the project scope. The next phase focused on the implementation of the ESMF Component layer, including the Virtual Machine (VM) and a set of utilities (v2).

We are currently working on the completion of a flexible, efficient layer for index space operations, which depends upon the implementation of an ESMF Array class (v3). This Array class will serve as the foundation for Grid and Field classes that can perform higher-level operations such as Regrid (v4).

The current ESMF funding cycle ends in 2010. While we anticipate funding beyond that time, we would like to be sure that the 2010 date finds us with a complete, portable, "finished" software package. The objective of the final phase, which has already begun, is to standardize behavior and interfaces across the framework (v5).