Democratizing HPC

High Performance Computing for Everyone!

Overview
Regardless of your experience level with HPC, in order to fully utilize it, you need access to three main components: hardware, software, and expertise.

HPC Hardware can consist of cloud based resources, small departmental level clusters, or even powerful workstations, etc.. These are available from a variety of vendors, ranging from online ‘pay-as-you-go’ access, to large systems custom designed and installed in dedicated data centers.

CAE software can comprise of things such as solvers, meshers, visualization, and workflow managers, etc.. This software can range from very specialized, open-source packages available at no cost, to more generic commercial packages that can run across a wide scale of domains and resources.

Expertise that is available includes domains such as Computational Fluid Dynamics, Finite Structural Analysis, Bioinformatics, etc. Companies needing expertise often start with external consulting “engineering service providers” who can assist with a specific project, before eventually directly hiring domain experts versed in a variety of technical skills.

HPC is available to you today if you need it!

This public resource center contains information related to how anyone can easily gain access to HPC resources and expertise.

What is HPC? There are lots of terms that essentially are variations of the same thing: HPC (High Performance Computing), Advanced Modeling, Simulation & Analysis, Technical Computing, Cluster Computing, Parallel Computing. Specifically, these refer to computers at the frontline of current computational processing capacity.

Why would you use HPC? For some situations, experimentation may not be adequate to test theories because things may be too small to see and measure, systems may be too large and remote, or processes can be too fast or too complex. Alternatively, simulations or analyzes may take too long or the size of the data is too large to be contained on a personal computer.

Success Stories

UberCloud has successfully completed six rounds of cloud experiments over the past few years. The case studies can be found online at their website as annual compendiums.
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Case Studies

AweSim has several dozen case studies that document clients use of HPC resources. These include sectors such as advanced manufacturing, automotive, aerospace, bio-health, food processing and logistics.

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By the Numbers: Democratization
Gartner, Inc. predicts that by 2019, the analytics output of business users with self-service capabilities will surpass that of professional data scientists.
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The global simulation software market is expected to grow from $6.26 billion in 2017 to $13.45 billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 16.5%. Similarly, the cloud-based simulation market reached $3.3 billion in 2016, and is expected to have a CAGR of 11.4% through 2025, reaching $8.5 billion.
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OSC Research Team Improves Code to Benefit Industrial Engineers
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University at Buffalo Center for Computational Research expanding industry partnership program
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Moving CAE Applications to the Cloud is Getting Easier
UberCloud's Wolfgang Gentzsch and Burak Yenier discuss the role of the Cloud in democratizing simulation in this Digital Engineering article.
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In 2012 CAE Cloud-based applications took three months on average, and the failure rate was about 50%. Although the cloud ‘on-boarding’ process then was already well understood, the major and time-consuming hurdles were still unresolved. Today, with a variety of successful applications, the process is significantly improved.
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Democratization at Jeco Plastic Products Lands New Opportunities

Jeco Plastic Products is a small custom-mold manufacturer of high-tolerance products with a customer base that includes large U.S. and
international original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the automotive, aerospace, printing and defense industries. When faced with a very difficult situation in its ability to quickly change a product design for a major large German automotive OEM, Jeco needed to upgrade its modeling and simulation from tedious physical testing to a quicker, HPC-based strategy.

Solution Providers:

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Though it took a frightening situation to spur Jeco Plastic Products to jump into HPC, the company has now demonstrated its ability to use HPC modeling and simulation, which has helped pave the way for lucrative projects with major aerospace, automotive and joint product development projects. Those projects include a multi-year contract with annual orders of $2.5 million during the next five to 10 years along with 15 more jobs and a capital investment of more than $500,000.

Published in 2012
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How the Cloud is Falling Short for HPC
HPCWire recently summarized many of the issues facing HPC users that want to utilize commercial could vendors
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Key issues that cloud vendors need to address to improve adoption of HPC cloud resources include: performance issues due to virtualization, a lack of low-latency interconnections, large scale data movement and storage, providing preinstalled and optimized softwre, and cost-competitive pricing.
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Democratizing thermal modeling with a cloud-based simulation app
More detailed and faster simulation with high-performance cloud computing.
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This test project for high-performance computing (HPC) in the cloud was designed to explore how cloud HPC resources can help to speed up and enable high-performance finite element simulations carried out with COMSOL Multiphysics and COMSOL Server. The objective was to find out how HPC cloud providers can augment engineering organizations’ on-premise hardware to allow for more detailed and faster simulations.

Ora Research
Bruce Jenkins
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Latest signal for cloud HPC’s role in CAE’s future: Rescale $14 million funding round
Bruce Jenkins discusses the future of High Performance Cloud Computing.
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One of the strongest signals yet for the increasingly central role that cloud HPC will play—indeed, is already playing—to expand the availability, affordability and value of CAE came in Rescale’s just-announced $14 million in Series A funding.
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Supercomputing for the Rest of Us
Supercomputing or High-Performance Computing (HPC) you can use for the duration of a project.
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Supercomputing or High-Performance Computing (HPC) was once confined to researchers working on climate analysis, genomic mapping, and quantum mechanics. But affordable hardware, Open Source software, and creative deployment are ushering in the era of supercomputing for the masses.

Digital Engineering
April, 2016
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Audience Questions: Supercomputing for the Rest of Us
Alan Chalker from Ohio Supercomputer Center and Lee Margetts from simulation industry association NAFEMS join DE’s editor Kenneth Wong for the roundtable talk on supercomputing.
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Digital Engineering’s Kenneth Wong joined Alan Chalker from Ohio Supercomputer Center and Lee Margetts from simulation industry association NAFEMS to discuss the impact of affordable HPC (high performance computing).

Digital Engineering
April, 2016
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NASCAR Models Aerodynamics to Boost Safety and Performance

Drive a car not originally built for racing around an oval track at 200 mph for a couple hours and you begin to understand why stock car drivers want the latest and greatest information on how their car will handle in close traffic on a banked curve. Traditionally, engineers in NASCAR relied on wind-tunnel and track testing. But in recent
years, NASCAR began looking for an alternative.

Solution Providers:

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In 2012, NASCAR turned to TotalSim USA, an engineering services provider and stalwart AweSim partner, to help teams and drivers
leverage the valuable information computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can offer. TotalSim worked with Eric Jacuzzi, aerodynamics and vehicle performance engineer at the R&D Center for
NASCAR, to teach him the necessary software tools and Ohio Supercomputer Center usage.

Published in 2015
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Comet Supporting Ohio Supercomputer Center AweSim Initiative
Comet Solutions’ Simulation Applications (SimApps™) will be available on the cloud through a partnership with the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) via the OSC AweSim initiative.
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By leveraging the cloud, high-performance computing centers are bridging the gap by allowing manufacturers of all sizes to tap advanced technologies on an as-needed basis. Comet completes the picture by putting easy-to-use applications at the front end of HPC resources for a breakthrough in providing all manufacturers with expert simulation results.
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Simulation in the Cloud is Becoming Mainstream
Engineering.com's John Hayes explains that - when it comes to simulation - its time to get your head in the clouds.
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In this post you’ll see an overview of Simulation applications hosted in the Cloud, a new type of offering that kicked off a year ago. That’s when Autodesk announced Simulation 360, thereby firing the proverbial starter’s gun in a race to create the dominant online simulation tool kit.
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Clippard Avoids Manufacturing Process Defect with Democratization

Clippard Instrument Laboratory, a community-oriented company near Cincinnati, specializes in miniature pneumatics. So, when the team encountered a proportional valve that was not delivering consistent performance, they knew they needed to take a closer look at the valve components and design.

Solution Providers:

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Thanks to the results provided through modeling and simulation and a quick turnaround, the Clippard team was able to make changes in their computer translation to correct the issue and manufacture a better product. Since the valve solution, Clippard has developed new methods to measure their material surface, improving processes from initial computational design to the finished product. According to Robertson, modeling and simulation has saved the team valuable time and resources.

Published in 2016
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Numerous Democratization Success Stories at CAASE18

CAASE18 (the Conference on Advancing Analysis & Simulation in Engineering) will showcase 22 presentations, workshops and discussions all focused on democratization.

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Dating back to the 2015 NAFEMS World Congress, interest in democratization has grown from a single session to a full conference track at NAFEMS events.

CAASE18 (the Conference on Advancing Analysis & Simulation in Engineering) an event hosted by NAFEMS and Digital Engineering Magazine, will take place June 5-7 in Cleveland. What makes CAASE18 so noteworthy is that it highlights the first time that democratization has earned a leading role as a key topic running the duration of the three day conference.

We have pulled together a list of democratization-themed abstracts covering presentations, workshops and discussions taking place at CAASE18. Click on the link below for details.
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Supercomputing for the Rest of Us
Supercomputing or High-Performance Computing (HPC) you can use for the duration of a project.
View Summary
Supercomputing or High-Performance Computing (HPC) was once confined to researchers working on climate analysis, genomic mapping, and quantum mechanics. But affordable hardware, Open Source software, and creative deployment are ushering in the era of supercomputing for the masses.

Digital Engineering
April, 2016
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Democratization Success Stories to be Presented at CAASE18

On June 5-7, more than 500 individuals will gather in Cleveland for the 2018 Conference on Advancing Analysis & Simulation in Engineering. At CAASE18, numerous customer success stories covering democratization and simulation governance will be presented.

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Take a moment to review the CAASE18 agenda, which contains a listing and abstracts for all democratization and simulation governance focused presentations. Democratization presentations from end-users include: Accuride, GE Global Research & Development, Shanghai Zhongli Investment Co., John Deere, ZPMC, BISME, and Superior Industries. Presentations from software and services providers highlighting customer cases will be delivered by: ANSYS, HBM Prenscia, EASA, Eckdyn Analysis Solutions, Siemens AG, Romax Technology, and Comet Solutions. Furthermore, CAASE18 will showcase a Democratization Round-Table Discussion, hosted by the Revolution in Simulation moderators.
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Comet Supporting Ohio Supercomputer Center AweSim Initiative
Comet Solutions’ Simulation Applications (SimApps™) will be available on the cloud through a partnership with the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) via the OSC AweSim initiative.
View Summary
By leveraging the cloud, high-performance computing centers are bridging the gap by allowing manufacturers of all sizes to tap advanced technologies on an as-needed basis. Comet completes the picture by putting easy-to-use applications at the front end of HPC resources for a breakthrough in providing all manufacturers with expert simulation results.
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ROI of 300% After Discovering CAE

How does one company undertake the herculean challenge of testing a product in a working environment 500m underground and submerged under water? By discovering and leveraging cloud-based CAE for CFD simulations, of course. Learn how Design and Innovation Solutions was able to understand the behavior of the system at play and what decisions were made to have the best design.

Solution Providers:

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Read how Design and Innovation Solutions came to discover CAE and shortly thereafter was able to leverage cloud-based CAE solutions from SimScale to realize a 300% ROI while reporting on 10 different simulation configurations, giving full confidence in the results.
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