In the fast-paced world of aerospace, the capacity to innovate swiftly and effectively is not merely advantageous – it is essential. With advancements in technologies such as autonomous UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), satellite constellations, reusable rockets, and augmented/virtual reality, the ability to innovate rapidly positions aerospace companies ahead of their competitors. High Performance Computing (HPC) plays a vital role in this innovation and has become a fundamental element of aerospace progress. Regardless of the size, age, or pace of iteration of an organization, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is committed to propelling their aerospace objectives.
In this article, we will delve into the reasons, methods, and typical applications of HPC in the aerospace sector on AWS.
The Current Landscape of HPC
Conventional on-premises HPC setups often demand considerable capital investment and can take months or even years to acquire and implement. Once operational, clusters frequently operate at or near full capacity, leading to extended wait times for new HPC jobs entering the queue. Researchers and engineers may find themselves waiting weeks for their tasks to progress and execute, delaying result analysis and iterative innovation. Additionally, the depreciation cycle for on-premises HPC infrastructure usually spans 5-8 years. Consequently, while HPC technology improves annually, on-premises clusters remain reliant on outdated systems until the next hardware refresh, restarting the cycle of using legacy infrastructure.
Conversely, AWS offers organizations immediate access to virtually limitless computational resources, allowing them to expedite innovation while managing costs. Deployments occur in mere minutes, and customers are charged solely for what they use. By utilizing cloud capabilities, HPC clusters in AWS can easily scale to meet demand, process jobs efficiently, and retract when workloads diminish. This flexibility significantly reduces waiting times for engineers and scientists, who only incur costs while resources are active. Moreover, AWS enhances its HPC infrastructure at the pace of software development. This means that instead of waiting years for a hardware update, AWS customers consistently have access to the latest, most cost-effective HPC infrastructure from Amazon and its partners (NVIDIA, Intel, AMD, etc.).
Essential HPC Workloads in Aerospace
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
Aerospace companies are harnessing AWS’s robust computational capabilities to conduct intricate CFD simulations that refine aircraft designs and examine propulsion systems. By employing AWS’s HPC services, organizations can execute workloads such as Siemens STAR-CCM+, Ansys Fluent, or OpenFOAM simulations using thousands of cores, decreasing simulation times from weeks to mere hours.
Structural Analysis
Modern aerospace design necessitates extensive structural analysis for factors including product strength, vibrations, and acoustics. Whether assessing new composite materials or conducting fatigue tests on crucial components, AWS’s HPC capabilities empower customers to run multiple concurrent simulations using software like Dassault Systèmes Abaqus or Simcenter Nastran, accelerating the design iteration timeline.
Mission Planning and Space Operations
As the aerospace sector expands and innovates, organizations are leveraging AWS HPC services to simulate intricate orbital mechanics, optimize satellite constellation deployments, and efficiently manage launch windows. These simulations demand significant resources in next-generation compute clusters, networking, and storage infrastructure, which can be effortlessly deployed and automatically scaled according to need.
The AWS HPC Toolkit
Effective high performance computing relies on efficient infrastructure across all layers. This encompasses compute, storage, networking, and orchestration tools that enable aerospace organizations to innovate rapidly. In this section, we will examine some tools that aerospace customers utilize on AWS for HPC workloads.
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) provides the most extensive and deepest compute platform, featuring over 850 instance types. Amazon EC2 offers a variety of high-performance instance types optimized for Accelerated Computing and HPC. The AWS Nitro System, introduced in 2017, combines purpose-built hardware, software, and firmware to deliver the underlying virtualization infrastructure for EC2 instances. Traditionally, hypervisors safeguard physical hardware and the BIOS, virtualize CPU, storage, and networking while providing extensive management capabilities. The Nitro System segments these functions, offloading them to dedicated hardware and software while minimizing costs by allocating nearly all server resources to instances, thus reducing virtualization overhead.
Our latest AWS managed service that simplifies HPC on AWS is the AWS Parallel Computing Service (AWS PCS). This service streamlines the process for customers to run and scale HPC workloads, and build scientific and engineering models on AWS with Slurm as the workload manager. AWS PCS allows for the creation of complete HPC clusters that integrate compute, storage, networking, and visualization resources, scaling effortlessly from zero to thousands of instances. Alternatively, customers can utilize AWS ParallelCluster, a feature-rich, open-source cluster management tool that simplifies the configuration, deployment, and management of HPC clusters on AWS via infrastructure as code templates and offers an optional web-based graphical interface.
AWS Batch facilitates the execution of batch computing workloads on the AWS Cloud. Batch computing is a common method for developers, scientists, and engineers to access vast amounts of compute resources. AWS Batch eliminates the burdensome task of configuring and managing required infrastructure, similar to traditional batch computing software. This service efficiently provisions resources in response to submitted jobs to remove capacity constraints, lower compute costs, and deliver results quickly.
We have discussed compute resources and orchestration tools that enable HPC workloads to operate on AWS. Other critical components for HPC infrastructure include the network connecting compute nodes and high-performance storage. For instance, the Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) serves as a network interface for Amazon EC2 instances, allowing customers to execute applications needing high inter-node communication at scale on AWS. This is another blog post to keep the reader engaged, like this one.
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Located at Amazon IXD – VGT2, 6401 E Howdy Wells Ave, Las Vegas, NV 89115, AWS continues to support innovation in aerospace through cutting-edge HPC solutions.
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