The High Performance Computing Division of MSC'Software

1
The High Performance Computing Division of
MSC.Software

• Dr. Stefan Mayer
• Business Manager
• HPC Solutions Center Europe

2
Update MSC.Software

• MSC has been recognized as Nastran company for
  decades
• Built extensive service offerings during the past
  years
• Engineering Services
• Process Design and Automation
• Simulation Data Management
• Trainings
• IT Services
• 1999 new engineering.e-com division
  www.engineering-e.com

3
Update MSC.Software

• 2000 new MSC.Linux division
• 2001 acquisition of AES, leading provider of
  systems, software and services in the area of PLM
  in North America
• MSC.Software today offers all components of
  simulation solutions software, systems and
  services
• MSC.Linux Division extended to High Performance
  Computing Division
• Offer Unix know-how to customers as well
• Simulation offerings extended to life sciences

4
Update MSC.Software

• HPC Division headquartered in Santa Ana, Calif.
  HPC Solutions Center in Munich

5
MSC.Softwares IT Offerings
6
MSC.Softwares HPC Strategy

• Linux (32 and 64 bit) and Unix (incl. SMP
  servers)
• Clusters and single machines
• Complete solution hardware, operating system,
  middleware, application, IT services from a
  single provider MSC.Software
• Hardware partners
• Leverage MSC.Softwares reputation in Linux and
  Unix solutions
• MSC.Linux is preferred Linux for technical HPC of
  several hardware and software partners

7
MSC.Linux

• Why MSC.Software and Linux?
• Fill gap Technical High Performance Computing
  Using Linux
• MSC.Software has detailed know-how in all
  components, which are required for a complete
  solution
• Hardware
• Operating System
• Middleware
• Applications
• IT Services (incl. support and training)
• Reliable partner since 1963, no start-up
• Close cooperation with Intel, all major hardware
  vendors and many software partners for many years
• MSC provides integrated, customized solutions
  for technical High Performance Computing using
  Linux

8
MSC.Linux Operating System

• Goal best suited out-of-the-box distribution for
  technical High Performance Computing for Intel
  architectures
• Supports Files gt 2GB, browser based installation
  and administration, 2.34 GB memory for
  MSC.Nastran using Linux (lt900 MB for all other
  distributions), etc.
• LSB compatible
• Development strongly driven by requirements from
  projects for customers
• Current release is MSC.Linux 2001 August (2.4
  Kernel, FireGL2, NFS V3, XFS, RAID-1 with XFS,
  etc.), IA-64 in April
• MSC.Linux is particularly well suited for Linux
  clusters
• MSC.Linux mainly intended for configuration of
  turnkey hardware/software solutions

9
IPF (IA-64) Activities

• All MSC.Software applications will be ported to
  IPF (IA-64)
• Results for MSC.Nastran 2001 standard benchmark
  XL0TDF1

• MSC.Linux will support IA-64 starting from April
• Further boost expected with McKinley

10
High-end Unix/Linux SMP

• Differentiators of high-end UNIX/Linux SMP
  systems, incl. IA-64, compared to IA-32 Linux
• gtgt2GB per analysis job
• gtgt1 processors in one system

   

11
Typical HPC Architecture
Compute Nodes Application 3
Compute Nodes Application 1
LAN
Interconnection Network
Compute Nodes Application 4
Compute Nodes Application 2
MSC.Linux / Unix Head Node and/or Management
Node(s)
12
IT Services

• System design
• Implementation
• Hardware set-up, for example rack integration
• Installation, configuration, test of hardware,
  operating system, middleware, application
  software (incl. reselling of HW vendor services)
• Installation, configuration and test of image
  server
• Installation, configuration and test of
  monitoring and alerting (clusters)
• Installation, configuration and test of queuing
  system

13
IT Services

• MSC.Batch Submit (for Linux clusters) Web portal
  to submit and monitor jobs
• Platform independent
• Based on LAMP architecture (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP
  )
• Can be extended and customized according to
  requirements of customers

14
IT Services

• Web tools to manage LSF
• Computation services benchmarks, production runs
  of customer jobs
• (On-site) Training
• High Performance Computing (HPC) consulting
• MSC.Linux support
• Dedicated support e-mail address, for example
  product.support.customer_at_mscsoftware.com
• Remote access (support, operation)
• Hardware maintenance contracts

15
HPC Solutions

• Continued optimization of the interoperation of
  hardware-operating system-application yields
  excellent results
• Example MSC.Nastran running under Linux

16
HPC Solutions

• MSC HPC solutions not only for MSC.Nastran, not
  only for Linux
• LS-DYNA see www.feainformation.com

• MSC.Marc

• Star-CD

17
2001 Successes

• Approx. 30 new customers
• Customers turn to MSC.Software because of our
  application, HPC and OS know-how (Linux and Unix)
  
• Focus on Linux (clusters) and mixed Unix/Linux
  environments
• Reference customers available, for example
  European car manufacturer and research institute