09 Jan Abaqus goes to the cloud
Abaqus goes to the cloud
Recently, Dassault Systèmes released their first version to execute Abaqus simulations in the cloud. This blog introduces Abaqus cloud computations and the current possibilities.
On-Premise Abaqus solver simulations
The customer must define the future simulation needs and based on these requirements, a certain license configuration will be bought/leased. The current requirements to execute Abaqus simulations are
- Buy/Lease on-premise licenses (reusable tokens)
- Create a license server
- Install the software on company hardware
- Perform the simulations on company hardware
- Manage the data on company hardware
On-Cloud Abaqus solver simulations
A new alternative way to launch Abaqus simulations is with on-cloud licenses and hardware. The requirements to execute Abaqus simulation in the cloud are
- Lease on-cloud license (reusable tokens) or buy simulation credits
- License server is created by Dassault Systèmes
- Software is installed by Dassault Systèmes (and is kept up to date)
- Perform the simulations on cloud hardware (Amazon Web Services or Outscale) or on company hardware
- Manage the data in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
As mentioned above, there are two types of licenses for Abaqus cloud computing.
Reusable tokens are checked out by the license server when a simulation job is running and once the job is done, the tokens are checked back in so that you can use it again. For simulation credits, these are consumable. Meaning, when you buy in packs of credits and they are used up after performing various simulations, a customer needs to purchase new credits. Typically, credits are purchased on a quarterly or yearly basis.
Credit consumption
The credit consumption is defined by 3 factors:
- The type of analysis (Linear static, Frequency, Linear dynamics, Nonlinear or Explicit)
- The speed (Performance 1 – baseline to 7 – fastest)
- Model size (defined by the number of nodes)
In the picture below, you can find an example how the credit consumption per hour looks like. More credits will be consumed when the analysis procedure is more “complex”, the faster you would like to obtain the results and more nodes are added in your input file.
One extra remark: depending on the model size, automatically more cores may be used for the simulation, regardless of the selected performance level. Does it also consume more credits then automatically?
Abaqus cloud token consumption
Depending on these parameters, a certain credit consumption is spent for the simulation job and hardware per hour. The exact credit consumption for each run can be found afterwards in the log file.
Other advantages
The process to start working in the cloud is less than one hour. This is because the 3DEXPERIENCE platform is already installed and configured.
The user can review the initial simulation results directly in the cloud, before copying the simulation results back to his personal desktop.
Drawbacks
Abaqus simulations are currently limited up to 16 cores, Dassault Systèmes is working on a solution of 16+ core simulations.
User-subroutines are not supported, but it is planned to support user-subroutines in the near future.
