While hardware advances towards exascale are outwith the scope of CRESTA, these advances will significantly influence software and systemware developments. Hence CRESTA strived to understand and track underpinning exascale technology tracking future architecture developments towards exascale and assessing their impact on exascale software developments within CRESTA. Associated with this, simulator technology and performance models for exascale will be assessed and tested. Operating systems will also be evaluated and assessed to allow European applications to exploit extreme systems.

Technologies that cut across the entire exascale software stack will be essential to ensure a successful and integrated set of systemware. Hence CRESTA evaluated, researched and developed best practice in technologies that cut across the entire exascale software stack: fault tolerance, performance optimisation and power management.