Chiyoda Accelerates Simulation Speed with Partnership Between Ansys HPC and Fujitsu

"Chiyoda was challenged to complete very large simulations, within short time frames, to meet customer needs. With an overtaxed IT infrastructure, we needed a flexible approach that would provide extra computing capacity on an ongoing basis. Ansys recommended that Chiyoda partner with Fujitsu Ltd. to maximize its Ansys HPC Pack licenses and leverage additional computing capacity. Today, by using 32 parallel cores via Fujitsu’s Technical Computing Cloud, processing speeds are two times faster than if simulations were run in our own IT environment."

— Kyoji Ishikawa, Lead Engineer / Chiyoda Corporation

Introduction

Around the world, engineering firms are challenged to provide optimal customer service, while keeping staffing, IT resources and other investments low. As simulation grows as a core engineering competency, it can be difficult for consulting firms to accommodate the dramatic shifts in IT demand that occur on a daily basis. Renting additional server space can take up to a week to get this capacity in place which is much too slow for a fast-based business.

Challenges

Chiyoda Corporation, a leading Japanese engineering company, relies on Ansys Fluent to attack a variety of engineering challenges for clients in the global energy business. While seeking fast answers for customers, Chiyoda’s internal IT resources were too overtaxed to process large, complex simulations quickly. To create a more flexible IT infrastructure — and make the most of Chiyoda’s Ansys HPC Pack licenses — Ansys introduced Chiyoda to Fujitsu Ltd., a strategic partner offering cloud computing resources and expertise.

Engineering Solution

• Deploy Ansys Fluent in a high-performance computing environment using Ansys HPC Pack licensing.
• Run Ansys solutions on Fujitsu’s exclusive Technical Computing Cloud.
• Ensure data security and seamless user access by creating a custom, web-based HPC portal devoted solely to Ansys Fluent.

Benefits

• By using 32 parallel cores, the new configuration has accelerated simulation times by six times when compared to a four-way parallel processing job.
• Typical processing speeds via the Fujitsu Technical Cloud are two times faster than if simulations were run in Chiyoda’s own IT environment, allowing results to be delivered to Chiyoda’s customers quickly.
• Ansys HPC Pack licenses allow Chiyoda engineers to benefit from scalability. For cases that demand less computing power, Chiyoda uses its Ansys HPC Pack licenses separately, enabling entry-level parallel processing. For computationally demanding projects, Chiyoda combines its Ansys HPC Pack licenses to enable highly scaled parallel processing, using Fujitsu’s cloud resources.
• This project was successfully conducted on the UberCloud Experiment collaboration platform which has supported over 150 engineering cloud projects in the past two years.