HPC 2017-18 | High-performance computing


CAE turns to HPC


Robert Roe interviews Ansys’ Wim Slagter on the value of HPC technology within the CAE market


Te CAE industry is no stranger to the use of HPC – but what was traditionally a tool employed by the largest engineering companies, such as the automotive and aerospace manufacturers, is now becoming much more ubiquitous as the barrier to HPC at entry level is lowered. Although a large-scale on-premise cluster


can still be out of the price range of many small or medium-sized engineering companies, they can still leverage the computational capabilities of HPC through cloud or appliance-based systems designed specifically for engineers or designers. For large-scale users with access to their own


HPC infrastructure, soſtware companies are continually optimising their soſtware to better fit today’s highly parallel architectures through partnerships with HPC centres and hardware providers, such as Intel and Nvidia, to tune engineering soſtware for the next generation of HPC architecture. Wim Slagter, director, HPC and cloud


alliances at ANSYS, commented on the importance of using HPC for engineering and design purposes. ‘HPC is helping manufacturers cut costs and create new revenue streams because they can design completely new products they had not previously considered. Users can also produce more reliable products and reduce cost in the development cycle,’ said Slagter. He also stressed that many more engineers


and designers have begun to see the potential value of using HPC in their workflows, as a survey published by Ansys found many users had issues that can be solved through the use of HPC technology. Te 3,000 survey respondents were asked to name the biggest pressures on design activities, and about half of them stated


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reducing the time required to complete design cycles. Similarly around a quarter of respondents said producing more reliable products, which results in lower warranty-related costs, was a big concern. ‘HPC is an enabler of innovation. HPC is a technology that addresses our customer’s top challenges,’ said Slagter.


Reducing the barrier to HPC Today the benefits of using HPC are fairly well understood by the CAE community, but this does not make using and setting up HPC systems any cheaper. In the past, the cost of provisioning and managing an in-house cluster were prohibitively expensive for all but the largest companies, but


HPC is an enabler of innovation. HPC is a technology that addresses our customer’s top challenges


now more engineers can gain access to HPC class computing capabilities through technologies such as the cloud. Particularly for smaller and medium-sized


enterprises, Ansys recommend using cloud computing to reduce costs and facilitate access to HPC computation without the burden of managing a cluster. ‘It is clear that hardware and soſtware


enhancements provide more value and have enabled HPC to deliver more value, but there are also challenges once companies start to deploy HPC. For example, in smaller enterprises specifying a cluster of provisioning, and managing a cluster, is not straightforward. Tey


may lack even the basic IT staff in-house to set up and manage a cluster. Tese are real challenges, so we need to simplify HPC cluster deployments,’ stated Slagter. Te main method that Ansys employs to


democratise HPC to a wider audience is through partnerships with a number of companies such as cloud-hosting providers, HPC hardware manufacturers and supercomputing centres such as HLRS, in Stuttgart. Te cloud partners not only provide HPC


services, but also the back-end infrastructure, to those customers who lack the in-house HPC or IT staff but still want the ability to increase computational resources quickly. In addition, Ansys also has partnerships with HPC partners that provide appliances, or pre-configured racks of computational hardware optimised and configured to run Ansys soſtware. ‘Te theory of cloud is that those users can


deploy these services only when they need it and ... they only have to pay for what they use. Smaller companies are interested in the flexibility, not only in terms of hardware deployment, but also soſtware licences,’ stated Slagter. ‘Cloud is one aspect that is clearly helping to


address these challenges, the other thing is that we have developed HPC appliances with specific partners – out-of-the-box, externally managed clusters. Again, this is aimed at those companies lacking infrastructure or IT staff, the right people to manage and provision a cluster,’ Slagter said. Trough alliances and partnerships, Ansys


is aiming to democratise the use of HPC for engineers in smaller firms by providing them with either cloud-based or appliance-based HPC solutions. For users without infrastructure or investment to support an in-house cluster, these options can provide HPC class computation at a


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