Interactive simulations in the cloud

[SomptingGuy]

Looking for experiences here...

I'm fairly familiar with the new simulation paradigm being pushed:
- Set up simulations locally on low-end device
- Submit to high-end (massively parallel) devices in "the cloud"
- Get results back

Licensing all happens in your cloud account, not on the local devices.
This involves trusting your private data with a 3rd party. I wonder how common that is today and if it will change. Any anecdotes?

More importantly (for me anyway) is the concept of interactive simulation. Are there any examples out there of simulations, where the operator is using a local device, but the interactive (potentially real-time) simulation is running on a server in the cloud? With licensing in the cloud too.

Steve

 

[IRstuff]

LOL, what's old is new again. We used to create simulation decks on local terminals, not even a standalone computer, and then send the batch file to a time-share computer over the modem (internet); that was the norm 40 years ago. A lot less hacking going on though.

While I believe that they believe they will do the right thing; humans are fallible and likely to leave extraneous copies of your data floating around in the cloud.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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[SomptingGuy]

@IRstuff

I'm quite old too. My first programs were on coding sheets, mailed to the local polytechnic. Returned a week later with a syntax error.

Batch computing is still dull. It's the idea of interactive simulations with a remote computer that interests me. Like playing Doom using an internet connection to a central Doom server. Or operating a remote HiL system from a local host computer.

Steve

 

[FEA way]

Currently more and more companies are using cloud simulation solutions such as 3DExperience platform. As you say, it’s possible to submit analysis from low-end machine using just the internet browser (sometimes locally installed apps are required for postprocessing though). That’s still something new and most companies prefer traditional software but it may change in near future. Of course cloud simulations have their disadvantages too - they can be quite expensive and require some additional time for file exchange. They may also give you less control on what’s happening. And they are rarely real-time simulations.

 

[IRstuff]

The primary advantage is that the cloud computing supplier has the incentive to maintain state-of-the-art processing capacity, so you will be paying for each hardware upgrade that you might have otherwise ignored if you had to invest in the hardware yourself.

There is ostensibly some economy of scale and you have some assurance that the supplier has invested in hardware that is suitable for the application and runs sufficiently fast enough to meet your requirements. But, you will have invested in someone else's hardware, with nothing tangible to show for it. Nevertheless, the business case can be made, particularly if your usage fraction is not 100%, which means that if you owned the hardware, the amortized cost of the hardware per usage time is higher than what the cloud supplier might incur; the flip side is that the cloud supplier would want to see near 100% utilization of THEIR hardware, which means that you might not get the throughput that you might expect from a more sparsely used installation within your own facility.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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[IRstuff]

Now, arguably, Google's business model is somewhat different, since their advertising revenue is so ginormous that they can afford to give everyone using a Google account both free email and 15 GB of storage, and they, like Amazon, can subsidize throughput on their servers, i.e., their servers don't run at 100% utilization, or anywhere close.

So the cloud suppliers can play at that game as well, since they can sub out their hardware platform to the likes of AWS and rent time on AWS servers.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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