Ansys Cloud Direct: Driving Global Innovation Through Scalable Simulation

By Special Guest
Wim Slagter, Director, Strategic Partnerships, Ansys
  |  September 29, 2022

The more you scale, the less you pay… no, really.

Unless you have never driven a car, flown on a plane, used a computer or smartphone, or even crossed a bridge, you have almost certainly been impacted by a product or solution that leveraged Ansys (News - Alert) software during the development process.  Why?

For more than half a century, Ansys engineering simulation software has enabled innovation across nearly every industry, helping innovative companies bring proven solutions to market faster through predictive simulation, shortening their time to market.

In a competitive, digital world, the need for high-performance simulation is greater than ever.  Grand View Research predicts the global software simulation market will reach nearly $40 billion by 2030, driven by the need to identify potential points of failure in product design and development while improving development efficiency.  The need for better simulation capabilities touches nearly every industry, including automotive, aerospace, industrial equipment, healthcare, high-tech, energy, and more.

Cloud has changed the model for computing, enabling easy and cost-effective scalability to support today’s bigger workloads.  Ansys has built its cloud-enabled simulation software on the back of an open ecosystem that enables its customers to choose the right technologies for their individual needs and with economies of scale that support today’s computing needs.  Its partner ecosystem now includes more than 350 technology partners.  Among them are many of the biggest names in the technology sector, including Microsoft and AMD (News - Alert), which power Ansys’ latest simulation software.

In addition to 50 years of proven success and a massive partner ecosystem, customers now have yet another reason to leverage Ansys’ simulation solutions in the cloud.

Ansys Cloud Direct, the managed cloud service provided by Ansys and enabled on Microsoft (News - Alert) Azure, recently announced availability of 3rd Gen AMD EPYC™ processors with AMD 3D V-Cache technology with HBv3 virtual machines (VMs). The development unites three powerful catalysts of innovation — chip development, simulation, and cloud computing — to offer a more robust, three-layered approach to computing without on-premises hardware restrictions.

“There is more demand than ever for high performance computing. At AMD, we continue to look at providing our partners and customers with the right processor to support the right workload, and the 3rd Gen AMD EPYC™ processor with AMD 3D V-Cache technology does that for technical workloads,” says Raghu Nambiar, corporate vice president, Data Center Ecosystem and Solutions, AMD.  “We are excited to work with Microsoft Azure and Ansys to create a solution that provides fantastic performance for technical workloads like CFD, FEA, and more.”

Designed specifically to accelerate computer-aided engineering (CAE) workflows, the new Azure HBv3 VMs with 3rd Gen AMD EPYC™ processors with AMD 3D V-Cache technology produce unprecedented performance boosts for technical computing workloads.  In early testing by Azure, Microsoft saw up to 80% improvement in large-scale computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations and up to 50% improvement in explicit finite element analysis (FEA) crash tests. This means that Ansys Cloud Direct customers can solve CAE problems much faster, leading to better design decisions in a shorter amount of time.

“In every industry and research community, innovation is now a compute-bound problem, which means advances in HPC are now more strategically important to Microsoft Azure customers than ever,” says Evan Burness, principal program manager for HPC, Microsoft Azure.”  Working closely with Ansys, we’re able to quickly bring 3rd Gen AMD EPYC™ processors with AMD 3D V-Cache technology into Azure HPC virtual machines, HBv3, to the benefit of all Ansys Cloud Direct customers. It’s an impressive combination of software tools and one of the most powerful HPC solutions available.”

Unconstrained Computing

With an Ansys Cloud Direct trial, customers can experience running Ansys simulations in the cloud at no cost. Trials include a free subscription to Ansys Cloud Direct service with access to Ansys solvers and cloud hardware. 

Cloud customers already benefit from hardware developments and advancements without having to update their physical systems. But, backed by a processor with more speed and upgraded performance, engineers, designers, and product developers will be able to explore more design alternatives and run larger simulations. As another perk, with the release of the upgraded HBv3s, the VM option will appear automatically for Ansys Cloud Direct customers to easily select without further action needed.

Don’t take our word for it.  Sign up for your free trial to Ansys Cloud Direct today and experience the power for yourself.

About the author:  Wim Slagter is Director, Strategic Partnerships, at Ansys. Wim designs and manages the global high performance computing (HPC) and Cloud alliance partner program by removing computing limitations from engineers for enhanced engineering productivity and higher-fidelity insight into product performance. He grows and scales HPC/cloud partnerships to drive deeper customer relationships, enable faster innovation and accelerate joint business growth. He earned his M.S. and PhD degrees in Aerospace Engineering from the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands.




Edited by Erik Linask
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