Simcenter STAR-CCM+ Job Submission using End-to-End Desktops

Introduction

End-to-end Desktops create a seamless HPCHPC stands for High-Performance Computing. It refers to the ... experience on Rescale. End-to-End Desktops is a batch compute cluster with desktop visualization capability on the head nodeIn the context of computer science, a node refers to a basic... of your cluster. It provides a user interface for users to interact with the job setup directly from the analysis software.

Features of End-to-End Desktops

• Enables you to work with your batch job submission interactively. You can monitor jobs on the fly
• Enables you to distribute your batch job submission across the entire cluster using an automated process
• You can pause the analysis at anytime, edit the inputs or parameters of the job and either restart or rerun the analysis
• Job results can be viewed during and right after completion of the simulation without any delays
• Files are automatically synced from the batch job to the Desktop session and vice-versa
• There is no additional charges for the visualization

Key Notes

• The Desktop session is CentOS Linux
• The files are synced to the work directory of the desktop session
• Users need to explicitly terminate the job to shutdown the cluster
• Session files should to be saved to the work folder, after which they will be uploaded to the job files under Results on the platform

Simcenter STAR-CCM+ Tutorial

This tutorial shows how to submit a Simcenter STAR-CCM+ job using End-to-End Desktops. The tutorial shows you how to set up a Simcenter STAR-CCM+ project on a 2 node cluster.

Users that submit jobs to the workstation, are limited to the resources on the workstation. Simcenter STAR-CCM+ provides an option to scale up and submit jobs to a larger, remote cluster. However, the workflow is complicated. End-to-End Desktops automates this process and hence provides the option to submit jobs to a large cluster with ease.

The steps are as follows:

Job Setup on Rescale Platform

• Click on the + New Job icon on the top left hand corner of the dashboard
• Name the job
• Click on Upload from this computer and browse to the location where the job is saved. Select the file and click Open

• Jump to the Software Settings page, and select the * End-to-end desktop** Job Type
• Select Simcenter STAR-CCM+ Interactive Workflow
• Click on Next

• Select the software version as 14.04.011 (Mixed Precision)
• Select the desired licensing option Users using their own licenses may select the Use Existing License and specify the relevant licensing information.
• Click on Next

• On the Hardware Settings page, select the hardware configuration that you would like to run your simulation on. In this example, we select the Nickel hardware as shown below
• Set the Number of Cores to 32
• Also, set a suitable wall time so that the cluster will be terminated after the simulation
• Now, you can click on Submit on the top right of the screen

Running Simulation on End-to-End Desktop

Once the job is launched, you will notice that it looks very similar to a batch job with an additional button to Connect Interactive Session on the top right of the screen

• Go to the Status Tab to view the progress of the job submission
• Click on Connect Interactive Session on the top right of the screen. This will open an in-browser desktop Desktop session for End-to-End Desktops that is running Linux. Alternatively, you can connect to your desktop using your choice of VNC client. Instructions on how to do this can be found here.

• Once the Desktop is launched, you will see the icon for Star-CCM 13.06.012. Click on the icon to launch

• Once Simcenter STAR-CMM+ is launched, click on File then Load.

• The Load a File session will be displayed. In this example, we will be running a simulation. Click Parallel Specified by Machine File and then set Compute Processes to 32. Click icon and then Browse to $HOME directory as shown below and select the machinefile.

• Select the desired licensing option and then Browse to the work folder as shown below and select the input file. Click on Open.

• The Project tree will be displayed on the top left. In this example, we will submit to run the job. Click on Run

• Once the job is submitted, you can view results and stop the simulation

• The files are automatically saved to the work folder
• Terminate the job to end the Desktop session. Any files saved to the work folder will be uploaded to the job files under Results on the platform