The Architects of OpenFOAM
CFD Direct From the Cloud (CFDDFC) is our established platform for running OpenFOAM, ParaView and supporting software using cloud computing. CFDDFC is now available on AWS C5 and M5 instances of Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2). The CFDDFC product page on AWS MarketPlace now lists CFDDFC versions 5.2 and 4.2, corresponding to versions 5 and 4 of OpenFOAM, respectively. Users who launch CFDDFC with the command line interface should update their installation of CFDDFC immediately.
CFD Direct announces the release of their new 1 day Cloud CFD course, the fourth course in their portfolio of OpenFOAM Training. The course enables users to run CFD with OpenFOAM on AWS, training the tools and processes for inexpensive, secure, efficient cloud use. The course addresses the main concerns of using public cloud: cost management, security, efficient CFD and data management. It exploits the cost benefits of cloud: meeting fluctuating demand for hardware at a cost that represents consistent, high utilitisation; and using cheaper, spare capacity, with an application that does not require 100% availability.
CFD Direct From the Cloud (CFDDFC) is our established platform for running OpenFOAM, ParaView and supporting software using cloud computing. We are pleased to announce the release of our CFDDFC command line interface (CLI) for quick, simple, deployment of OpenFOAM CFD workloads with CFDDFC on Amazon EC2. The CLI is a simple shell script named “cfddfc” that users can follow a few short short steps to get running. It uses EC2 Spot Instances by default, and provides cost estimates for data transfer to help users run workloads at lowest cost.
In Year 2, CFD Direct updated its OpenFOAM cloud computing platform — CFD Direct From the Cloud (CFDDFC) — to OpenFOAM 4.1, running on Ubuntu 16.04. Feedback from users was very positive, including a 5-star rating on the CFDDFC Marketplace Product page at at Amazon Web Services (AWS). We became an Advanced Technology Partner of AWS, and produced a case study on the cost of CFD on AWS EC2 that concluded, in particular, that the cost of Spot instances was approximately 40% of the total cost of ownership of on-premises hardware. We made CFDDFC available on AWS X1 instance types, running simulations on 32 and 64 physical cores in a single instance.
Cloud computing replaces large upfront expenses with low, variable payments that only apply to what you use. CFD simulations cover a range of sizes and complexity. Activity is generally interrupted by quiet periods when simulations are halted, e.g. when a simulation ends non-working hours, during analysis of results or preparation of a new simulation, etc. The fluctuating demand makes CFD well suited to a pay-per-use model. Users need to understand the costs involved to get the best value from cloud and be confident that they fall within budget. This article explains the costs, with an example of an external aerodynamics calculation with OpenFOAM using CFD Direct From the Cloud™ (CFDDFC) on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
In 2015, we launched CFD Direct From the Cloud (CFDDFC), a complete OpenFOAM cloud computing platform that includes the latest version of OpenFOAM and supporting software running on Ubuntu. The platform provides OpenFOAM in its native Linux OS, which users can access directly from a terminal or via a remote desktop. CFDDFC is available for Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a product on AWS Marketplace, pre-configured for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). CFDDFC is in constant use, on a range of EC2 Instances ranging from the small instance, eligible for Free Tier, to the Compute Optimized instances including the largest with 36 virtual (18 physical) CPUs, and with multiple instances networked as a cluster for larger workloads.