Mulitple Cores and FEA vendors - licensing
Mulitple Cores and FEA vendors - licensing
(OP)
Hello, we use ANSYS and CFX at my work. We have new quad-core computers (64 bit 8 gigs). ANSYS requires additional HPC licenses to utilize the extra cores we have on our machines. ANSYS will use 2 by default (CFX only 1!), before requiring additional cash outlay for expensive HPC licenses that will allow all cores to be used. I am curious if other mainstream FEA providers use a similar multi-core licensing strategy? I have made it clear to our support provider that this practice seems like a money grab from ANSYS. After spending over $100k on the package only to find out our computers are 1/2 crippled without paying even more (this was never mentioned up front), leaves a bad taste to say the least. Anybody else want to chime in on this practice and whether you support it?





RE: Mulitple Cores and FEA vendors - licensing
There are a lot of subtleties in licensing that people should be aware of such as charge for extra CPUs, ability to run the solver in batch mode outside the modeler, the ability to run multiple instances of the modeler or solver on the same computer when using a dongle, the cost of running on Linux versus Windows, just to name a few. Also, before you purchase find out what upgrade costs are going to be and get these in writing so that if you buy a limited version they do not gouge you on the upgrade down the road to the full system you really want.
RE: Mulitple Cores and FEA vendors - licensing
RE: Mulitple Cores and FEA vendors - licensing
RE: Mulitple Cores and FEA vendors - licensing
RE: Mulitple Cores and FEA vendors - licensing
Looking at it from the flip side though, you can now use Distrubuted Ansys w/ 2 processors free of charge. This gives you access to the AMG and DSPARSE solvers which are superior in performance compared to their SMP equivalents.
Being that you're running an Intel machine, see if you have an option in your machine BIOS which allows you to confugure the computer such that the operating system sees each physical CPU as a processor. Rather than each core as a CPU. You'll be able to tell easily by looking at Task Manager afterwards.
RE: Mulitple Cores and FEA vendors - licensing
To be fair when I restarted using FEA in 2000, PCs were only just becoming quick enough to take advantage of practical FEA codes and were expensive for memory. Now I can get a quad core machine with lots of RAM for the same price as my single CPU workstation. Mine you, the quad core architecture is still not as efficient as the dual core so most of the extra capability is most in poor bus speed at the moment acoording to the benchmarks I've done.
RE: Mulitple Cores and FEA vendors - licensing
RE: Mulitple Cores and FEA vendors - licensing
RE: Mulitple Cores and FEA vendors - licensing
RE: Mulitple Cores and FEA vendors - licensing
RE: Mulitple Cores and FEA vendors - licensing
While scalability is limited typically after 2 CPU's...there is a huge benefit between 2 vs. 4. Hence, if you can justify it, I would ask my company to purchase one or two HPC licenses. A couple of hours saved time here and there certainly adds up in a hurry! You should have little problem quantifying it to your boss so long as it's practical.
Looking at things from a more grounded point of view, let's face it, most of us aren't solving huge models with a huge number of time steps all day, every day. I really don't see it as a huge issue...atleast not for me. I've just learned to make the most of what I do have available. My peve is IT's lack of support for 64-bit OS's on workstations and how old our "new" computers are! Why do large companys operate on a 2-3 year technology delay again? *end rant*
RE: Mulitple Cores and FEA vendors - licensing
I know at least two mid- to large-sized companies that would greatly disagree with you.
Sounds like you've made some very valid points for those of you not solving huge models, but then, why are people that are doing linear static analyses even spending money on "mainstream" software?
If you are "playing devil's advocate", I thought I would fight back. Personally, I manage people that do analysis, so the question is more of a $/hour question for me...