ANSYS Tutorial: Remote Solve

Introduction

This article describes how to set up a queue system on a remote machine designated for solving large analyses from multiple users efficiently. The process requires three steps:

1. Setting up the queue in RSM manager on your remote machine
2. Setting up the RSM manager on your local machine to be able to send jobs to the remote machine
3. Configuring Ansys Workbench on your local machine to place jobs in the queue on the remote machine

Benefits of RSM:

• More efficient utilization of hardware resources
• Multiple users can run on a single machine
• Jobs can be queued and will be run as soon as resources are available
• You can continue working on your local machine while the remote does the solving (requires separate ANSYS Mechanical PrepPost and solver license)

ANSYS Tutorial, Step-by-step instructions

This process describes how to set this up for ANSYS release 12 and 13

It is only recommended to use this functionality if you are connected to the remote machine via a fast network connection, preferably, but not necessarily, on a local network. The reason for this is that the result files will have to be transferred from the remote to your local machine after solution completes.

0) Installing RSM service on the server machine

0.1) Be sure that no Ans.Rsm.* processes are running on the Windows Task Manager

0.2) Start CMD. If you are using Windows Vista, Win 7 or Windows Server 2008, don't forget "run as administrator"

0.3) Go to the directory "c:\program Files\ANSYS Inc\V***\RSM\bin\". Replace V*** with the right version number you are using

0.4) For V12.0 or V12.1 ,run the commands Ans.Deployment.Config.RSM.exe -mgr -svr

For V13.0, run the command AnsConfigRSM.exe -mgr -svr

1) Setting up a queue on your remote machine:

Open RSM manager on the machine that will act as the remote solver. This machine must have the same version of ANSYS installed as the machines you will send jobs from.

Throughout this example, the remote machine will be called “Monster5” and the queue system on this machine will be called “Monster5Queue”

An RSM window should appear with contents as shown if no queues have been set up previously. There should be a queue called “Local” and a compute server called “localhost”:

Add a queue by right-clicking on Queues and choose Add. Type the name you want the queue to have, and assign localhost as the compute server:

There should be a new queue in RSM manager with the name you just specified. Expand this folder, right click on “localhost” and press properties.

In the properties window that appears you can set (among other things) working directory, max running jobs and a start and stop time for the queue to be executed. It is recommended that you change the working directory to a shorter path, and not use the default.

Number of running jobs specifies the number of concurrently running jobs, and all of these will check out their own license. If you only have one license available, this should be set to one.

Start and end time specifies when the queue starts and when it stops picking new jobs from the queue. I.e. if there is a job running when end time is reached, this job is finished, but no new job is started.

You are now ready to set up your local machine to send jobs to this queue on the remote machine. Move on to the next step:

2) Setting up the RSM manager on your local machine:

Open your local RSM manager for ANSYS R12.X

Start->All Programs->ANSYS 12.X->RSM->RSM Manager :

A window like this will show up if you have not set up any queues in RSM before:

The Solve Manager lies on the remote machine, so to set this up, go to Tools->Options and type the name of the remote machine. In this case: “Monster5”:

When you click OK, you should have a RSM window that looks something like this, where the existing queues found on the remote machine are listed:

If it says “(Set Password)” after Monster5, right click on “Monster5 (Set Password)” and click Set Password:

Type enter without typing your username, and type/retype your windows password:

To test your connection, right click on the localhost in the remote queue and press “Test Server”. Make sure that the status field turns to Finished and not Failed:

You are now ready to set up this solve manager with its queue(s) in workbench.

3) Adding the remote machine in workbench:

The final step is to add the remote machine to your Solve Process Settings in ANSYS Workbench. Open a ANSYS Workbench model in R12.X and press ‘Tools->Solve Process Settings..’ in Mechanical:

Click the “Add Remote” in the window that appears, type Monster5 as the “Solve Manager”, and select Monster5Queue as the Queue:

You can choose how many processors on the remote machine you want each job to utilize under Advanced.

Depending on how many processors you have available on your remote machine, how many licenses you have and how many simultaneously running jobs you allow in the queue, you can set up how many processors each job should utilize. The default is two, and a standard ANSYS license can run on two processors/cores

To use the remote machine for solving, press the drop-down button next to Solve when the model is fully set up, and select the remote machine:

If you go into the RSM Manager again, you should find your, and all other currently running, completed or queued jobs there:

During solve, you can retrieve your solution trackers, solver output, force convergence plots and so on by right clicking on Solution and clicking retrieve:

Do you want to learn more?

Please contact ANSYS Technical Support at EDR on +4 6757 2120 or technical questions, or ask for a sales representative for questions about licensing.

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