High-performance computing (HPC) is now gradually becoming more common in small and mid-sized companies. Nevertheless, many misconceptions still surround HPC, preventing companies from taking advantage of it for becoming more competitive.
For more information visit http://www.ansys.com/hpc-myths
Technology Features of Apollo HDD Machine, Its Technical Specification with C...
6 Myths of High-Performance Computing
1. Advances have made tasks that were previously solvable only by a
supercomputer tractable for SMALLER COMPUTERS.
CFD simulations can clearly scale up to higher core counts than structural
mechanics or electromagnetics simulations because of the nature of the
underlying numerical algorithms. But this does not mean that structural and
electromagnetics simulations are not amenable to HPC solutions.
In a recent ANSYS survey, about ONE THIRD OF THE ALMOST 3,000
RESPONDENTS said that they limit the size or amount of detail for nearly
every model they run due to compute capacity and/or turnaround time
limitations. An additional 57 PERCENT OF RESPONDENTS said they
impose these limits on at least some of their models.
Twenty years ago, HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING (HPC) was primarily used
by the larger enterprise organizations for engineering simulations. HPC is now gradually
becoming more common in smaller and mid-sized companies as well. Nevertheless, many
misconceptions still surround HPC, preventing its adoption and/or growth in product
development scenarios where it could clearly provide a higher return on investment.
Years ago, only SUPERCOMPUTERS had enough
computing power and capacity to perform even routine simulations.
HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING IS AVAILABLE
ON SUPERCOMPUTERS ONLY
myth #1
SOLUTION: ANSYS has teamed up with HPC strategic partners
to make specification and deployment of HPC easier for you.
PROBLEM: Lack of expertise
and time to specify hardware
configurations is a leading barrier.
WITHOUT INTERNAL IT SUPPORT,
HPC CLUSTER ADOPTION IS UNDOABLE
myth #4
AVERAGE OF 10 DIFFERENT ANSYS
MECHANICAL BENCHMARKS
HPC IS USEFUL ONLY FOR CFD SIMULATIONS
myth #2
I DON’T NEED HPC—
MY JOB IS RUNNING FAST ENOUGH
myth #3
MORE
COMPUTING
CORES PER CPU
INTEGRATED I/O
ON A PROCESSOR
DIE (YIELDING
HIGHER MEMORY
BANDWIDTH)
MORE AND
FASTER MEMORY
CHANNELS
LARGER L3 CACHE
SIZE, FASTER DISK
STORAGE
FASTER
INTERCONNECTS
AVX SUPPORT
SOLVERSPEEDUP
2 cores (1 node) 16 cores (1 node) 32 cores (2 nodes) 64 cores (4 nodes) 128 cores (8 nodes)
Continually Improving Core
Solver Rating To 128 Cores
FREQUENCY OF LIMITING SIZE/DETAIL IN SIMULATION MODELS DUE TO
COMPUTER INFRASTRUCTURE OR TURNAROUND TIME LIMITATIONS
57%
34%
9%
For some models
Nearly every model
Almost never
At ANSYS, an intense focus on HPC software development has
produced capabilities that set us apart and enabled breakthrough productivity
on current and emerging hardware solutions.
If your CFD software can only scale down to about 100,000 cells per core, then a
typical two million cell model can only run on 20 cores efficiently.
Having more cores available is useless in this case because they do not increase the
simulation speed. However, if the CFD software can scale to about 5,500 cells per
core (like ANSYS Fluent) the same two million cell model can then run
on 360 cores, resulting in an almost 18-fold faster turnaround!
PARALLEL SCALABILITY IS ALL
ABOUT THE SAME, RIGHT?
myth #5
The key is that the cost of HPC is matched to value — and HPC offers one of the
greatest returns on investment possible.
ANSYS HPC software licensing is designed on pricing models that ensure the
highest value for engineering simulation workloads while allowing ANSYS to
continue our HPC software developments.
HPC SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE
ARE RELATIVELY EXPENSIVE
myth #6
WRONG
AVX
VALUE PROPOSITION OF HPC
ENHANCES ENGINEERING
PRODUCTIVITY BY
ACCELERATING SIMULATION
THROUGHOUT
ENABLES ENGINEERS TO
CONSIDER MORE DESIGN
IDEAS AND MAKE EFFICIENT
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
DECISIONS
ALLOWS ENGINEERS TO
SIMULATE LARGER, MORE
COMPLEX MODELS SO THAT
MORE ACCURATE DESIGN
DECISIONS CAN BE MADE
CUMULATIVETIMESAVINGSUSING
MULTIPLEMULTI-COREJOBS
LICENSEFEEPERMULTIPLE
MULTI-COREJOB
ABSOLUTETIMESAVINGSPERJOB
LICENSEFEEPERCOREPERJOB
NUMBER OF CORES NUMBER OF CORES
NUMBER OF CORES NUMBER OF CORES
Idealscalability HPC Pack
HPC Workgroup
to read the full white paper visit ansys.com/hpc-myths
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Demonstrated scalability of ANSYS Fluent above 80 percent
efficiency with as low as 5,500 cells per compute core
Speedup
Ideal
11.1K
cells/core
7.4K
cells/core
5.5K
cells/core
4,096 8,192 12,288 16,384
16,000
14,000
12,000
10,000
8,000
6,000
4,000
2,000
0