CFD Direct Achieves AWS High Performance Computing Competency Status
March 1st, 2021 – CFD Direct Limited, the Architects of OpenFOAM, announced today that it has achieved Amazon Web Services (AWS) High Performance Computing (HPC) Competency status. This designation recognises that CFD Direct has demonstrated deep experience helping customers optimise their HPC workloads for performance and efficiency using AWS’s elastic and scalable cloud infrastructure.
AWS launched the AWS HPC Competency to allow customers to engage highly specialised AWS Partners easily and confidently. The Partners provide technology offerings for faster innovation, better agility, and flexibility in: established applications in genomics, computational chemistry, financial risk modeling and computer aided engineering; and, emerging applications such as deep learning and autonomous driving. The AWS HPC Competency takes on the heavy lifting of identifying and validating industry leaders with proven customer success and technical proficiency.
Achieving the AWS HPC Competency differentiates CFD Direct as an AWS Partner with deep domain expertise in one or more of the following categories: Application, HPC Management, and Foundational Technology.
“CFD Direct is proud to be one of the first AWS Partners to achieve AWS HPC Competency status,” said Dr. Chris Greenshields, Director. “With CFDDFC, we have enabled engineers and scientists to run computational fluid dynamics (CFD) on AWS with instances of up to 48 processors and clusters of 100s of processors. Instances launch in minutes and customers pay only for what they use — without the up-front software and hardware costs, system maintenance, job queues and proprietary interfaces.”
CFD Direct From the Cloud™ (CFDDFC®) is available in AWS Marketplace, providing a complete cloud platform for CFD running the latest version OpenFOAM and supporting software, including Scotch and OpenMPI for parallel processing. Users can launch instances and clusters of instances in minutes, which can then be accessed via remote desktop from Linux, macOS or MS Windows, or terminal login, securely using SSH public key encryption. CFDDFC is available for Intel- and AMD-based instances, with a full graphical environment, and as “CFDDFC (Arm)” for Arm-based instances for lower cost, on-demand batch runs without graphics.
“With our old process, we could use CFD only on a handful of projects per week. Now, with AWS, we can run 250 to 300 projects per week, allowing for endless growth potential thanks to the scalable solution,” says Ben Schaefer, Big Ass Fans.
AWS is enabling scalable, flexible, and cost-effective solutions from startups to global enterprises. The AWS HPC Competency is part of a broader AWS Competency Program to help customers identify Consulting and Technology Partners with deep industry experience and expertise.
About CFD Direct Limited
CFD Direct produces the CFD software OpenFOAM, licensed exclusively free and open source by the OpenFOAM Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation. CFD Direct undertakes core maintenance of OpenFOAM, funded by industrial and academic partners, and provides training, support, development and cloud services to customers worldwide. Customers include leading technology companies across industry sectors, e.g. process/chemical, marine, energy, manufacturing and automotive.