Cloud-based CAE HPC Partnership Focuses on Speed and Security of Data Transfer

The collaboration between Rescale and Equinix provides a scalable HPC solution. (Image courtesy of Rescale)

As the complexity of systems and products increases, engineers need to design and simulate more complex part designs and assemblies that incorporate larger numbers of more complicated components. Although the capability and efficiency of computer-aided engineering (CAE) tools improve over time, computational capacity often remains a limiting factor. It requires engineers to reduce part complexity and number of simulated points, and simplify analysis to avoid exceeding the available computational capability.

Engineers and managers also are concerned that trade secrets, proprietary designs and other intellectual property (IP) may be exposed to outsiders, particularly when data is communicated over the public Internet. Cloud-based high-performance computing (HPC) solutions often communicate data over the Internet to provide convenient global accessibility, but this communication network can result in undesired exposure of data, private information and competitive information. While high computational capacity is needed, viable computing solutions must provide sufficient security to protect user designs, information and privacy.

The recent alliance between Rescale, an HPC environment simulation and analysis tool suites provider, and Equinix solves the security issues and significantly improves HPC capability. The platforms provided through this collaboration allow users to enhance computational capability without risking IP, privacy and security.

The Equinix platform provides access to multiple cloud computing resources through a common interface (Image courtesy of Equinix.)

Users have two options to increase computational capacity and protect user data and privacy:

Keep on-premise equipment: Users can continue to use their own on-premise HPC systems and gain improved performance by adding cloud computing capability. Rescale offers a managed pay-as-you-go on-demand cloud computing model. Users can choose to access the cloud-based capability either over the Internet or through private networks. Security protocols limit the risk of data exposure over the Internet, but users concerned about their IP and privacy can access the cloud system through private networks to improve security, increase privacy and better protect data.

Equinix colocation service: Users can move their HPC equipment to an Equinix International Business Exchange (IBX) data center. They can continue to use their own equipment while gaining higher performance data communication over private secure interconnections to cloud computing providers. This connection provides the high performance of a cloud computing solution while avoiding the data and security risk of communication over the Internet.

This collaboration offers a holistic approach to improving performance for computationally intensive engineering simulation and analysis. Users can integrate their own equipment with the cloud computing resources or draw on them as needed. The net result is a higher performance and cost-efficient HPC solution.

For more information visit the Rescale and Equinix websites.