RSM: Workbench Tutorials
The tutorials here will introduce you to solving ANSYS Workbench projects using Remote Solver Manager (RSM) in Rescale. You can follow the step-by-step tutorials provided to you which include a sample workbench model, or apply the instructions directly to your model.
Note: Remote Solver Manager (RSM) is supported only on versions 17.X and 18.1
Currently, to submit jobs using RSM to the Rescale cloud platform, you will need to setup a Rescale Desktop session.
You can find a guide on how to set up a desktop session here.
ANSYS DesignXplorer
This tutorial will show you to submit ANSYS DesignXplorer jobs using the Remote Solver Manager (RSM) with Rescale as the remote compute resource. We will show you how the options that you are typically used to select in ANSYS Workbench are well-integrated in the ScaleX Rescale platform.
Click on the “Import Workbench Project” button to clone the job hosting the sample project. Then, click “Save” on the job to have a copy of the file in your Rescale cloud file storage.
Click on the “Get Job Results” button to access and see a sample RSM-submitted Rescale job.
- For this example, please spin up a Windows Rescale Desktop and add ANSYS Structures version 18.1 as the software
- Note that Rescale chooses the latest version and you will have to manually use the dropdown menu to change to 18.1
- You may also either add the cloned job hosting the sample project to your Desktop, or just directly download the project file in the Desktop Windows environment from your Rescale account
- Launch ANSYS Workbench 18.1
- Select File and choose Restore Archive to open the project titled
designxplorer-sample-project.wbpz - We recommend that you save the project file
.wpbjanywhere within theZ:workdirectory
The project schematic is shown in the image above. Next, we’ll go over the DOE and Parameter Set settings. Note that these have already been applied to this sample model but we’ll go over them for this tutorial.
This sample model is a cantilever beam under load and the goal is to perform a parametric study of the cross section by varying the web length and web thickness dimensions.
- Notice that a single run (Design Point 0) has already been completed; the entire system is up to date and with no failures
- Double click the Design of Experiments cell to open the Design of Experiments tab
- In the Outline of Schematic, select Design of Experiments to display the DOE Table. As part of the workflow, we’ve already selected to Preview and inserted all as design points, which for a Central Composite Design study, produces 9 design points for 2 input parameters
- Close the Design of Experiments tab
Back in the project schematic, double click the red Parameter Set box to open the Parameter Set tab. The design points from the DOE should also appear on the table.
- [IMPORTANT] We’ve selected to retain all design points during update, shown in the image below, in order to have the solver file directory of all design points. This is useful when troubleshooting for errors
- Close the Parameter Set tab
There are three Design Point job submission types in RSM.
You can submit one job for all design points which will execute in serial mode. Alternatively, you can also submit one job for each design point, as well as a specified number of jobs.
They are described in more detail in the following options.
[Option 1] One job for all Design Points
We’ll now set up the RSM submission. In the project schematic, right click on the Parameter Set box and select Properties. The following options are the minimum required to set up a successful Rescale RSM queue. The rest is based on your workflow.
- Set the Update Option to Submit to Remote Solve Manager
- Set the RSM Queue to a pre-configured Rescale cluster queue. In this tutorial, we selected Rescale – Zinc (On Demand Pro)
- Set Job Submission to One Job for All Design Points
- This will execute one solution after the other on the same compute resource
- Set Component Execution Mode to Parallel
- Set Number of Processes to 8 (Note: You must enter a valid core number for the cluster RSM queue that you choose)
- This is now ready to submit. Right click on the Parameter Set box, and click Update all Design Points.
- At this point, ANSYS will submit the job(s) to the Rescale platform using the requested resources. Depending on how the jobs have been set up, you will see the status of your jobs in the Job Monitor, as shown in the image below. As you can see, one job is being submitted. A job ID is generated which will be the same as the Rescale job ID.
- Once the job is submitted to the Rescale platform, you can monitor its status if you choose. As shown in the image below, there is 1 job running.
Note: You can access and see the RSM-submitted Rescale job of this tutorial by clicking on the Get Results button in the beginning of the article.
[Option 2] One Job for each Design Point
- For faster performance, you can also choose to submit one job for each design point. Select this option using the drop-down menu of Job Submission in the Properties of Schematic. Each job will use the same cluster configuration settings. Here we can use the same values as in Option 1, but you can select different cluster instances as well.
- Once the job reaches Rescale, you can right-away go to your platform account and check your job. As shown in the image below, there are 9 jobs running.
[Option 3] A specified number of Jobs
- To submit a specified number of jobs, you can select this option in the drop-down menu of Job Submission in the Properties of Schematic. Then, select the number of jobs that you request. RSM will divide the number of design points among the available number of jobs that you choose.
- For this tutorial, we selected 2 jobs. The rest of the settings are the same based on the cluster configuration that you choose and your workflow preferences.
- Once the job reaches Rescale, you can right-away go to your platform account and check your job. As shown in the image below, there are 2 jobs running (5 design points in one, and 4 in the other).
On the Rescale platform, you can click on the job to access and tail the compute and solve process. For instance, you can click on the Status tab to monitor the progress of your job and get information about your cluster in real-time.
You can see it go through the five stages to successful completion: Queued, Validating Input, Starting Cluster, Running Job, and Stopping Cluster. The image below is a screenshot of the stdout.live file which provides live feedback of the solution status of each design point.
To read more about Job Monitoring click the link here.
Once the job is completed, the results in its entirety will be populated back to ANSYS Workbench automatically. You can verify this by opening the Job Monitor window from the status bar as shown in the image below.
