README Document. LS- DYNA MPP Program Manager for Windows. Version 1.0 Release: June 10, Welcome! Quick Start Workflow

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1 README Document LS- DYNA MPP Program Manager for Windows Version 1.0 Release: June 10, 2016 Welcome! This document provides guidance on how to get started using the LS- DYNA MPP Program Manager for Windows. It is an ongoing program in development so we would very much appreciation your feedback on how we can make it better. Quick Start Workflow We would like everyone to be working from the same basis. We understand that it is not always possible but for now we ll advocate that one start out with the production release of version 800 or R800. Open up DYNA/LSTC.php for all subsequent downloads mentioned in this document Google MSMPI Download and install the latest version of the MS MPI from Microsoft s site. We recommend Microsoft s version since it is what we have tested the program with however other MPI versions may work just fine. Download and install the latest LS- DYNA SMP solver from the LSTC site Now, download the LS- DYNA MPP solvers (single- and double- precision) likewise from the LSTC site If you don t have the 8.10 manuals (or newer), you should download them also since they are nicely updated Download and install LS- DYNA MPP Program Manager for Windows (file LS- DYNA MPP v1.0.zip) Check your license install and verify that you can run LS- DYNA MPP and are licensed for version 8.0 Verify that you have MS.Net 4.5 framework (or later). If you don t, you ll have to download and install it - see us/download/details.aspx?id=30653 Start LS- DYNA MPP Program Manager for Windows and run your analysis! Now, if you would like to read how everything is interconnected and how to make it all work step- by- step, please keep reading down below. An Introduction to Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) for Windows Most of you got started with LS- DYNA using the shared memory processing (SMP) version of LS- DYNA. It is designed to run on one machine and more or less, scales nicely from one to four CPU- cores. As more cores are added, don t be surprised to see little gain in performance. And please remember, that for many years, most individual machines didn t have a lot of CPU- cores and the SMP version was as good as it gets. Around 1993, LS- DYNA introduced its first version of MPP and one could link together multiple computers and leverage multiples of CPU s. Given that simulation models tend to increase in size and complexity every year, the future belongs to MPP or a hybrid version of SMP/MMP to optimize features within each programing architecture. Why MPP on a Windows box? Or as my Unix/Linux friend has dissed me when are you going to get a real computer? Well, let s say that over the last several years is that individual Windows machines can easily have eight CPU- cores or many more. In our office, we have dual 10- CPU- core Zeon box. It provides 20- CPU cores within one computing node. To leverage this power, one needs to use MPP. {Please note that one should turn off hyperthreading in the bios due to the compute intensive nature of LS- DYNA.} LS- DYNA MPP Program Manager for Windows Page 1 5

2 As we mentioned that the future belongs to MPP, LSTC is also favoring its development efforts toward MPP and some new features only scale under MPP (e.g., implicit analysis using Mortar Contact). Given these arguments: (i) improved scalability and (ii) More robust LS- DYNA code support; it seems logical to transition away from SMP toward MPP. MPP under Windows Our assumption is that you want to run MPP on one PC Workstation with Windows 64- bit OS (whether 7, 8 or 10 doesn t matter). The way MPP works is that it assumes you want to spawn processes (LS- DYNA tasks) across multiple machines and thus it requires a special program to make this happen. This special program is called the Message Passing Interface or MPI. LS- DYNA MPP runs under MPI. This is a complexity that trips up pretty much every new user running MPP LS- DYNA for the first time. The MPI comes in lots of flavors but we are going to keep it simple just talk about the MS MPI flavor (v5.0 or later). This is a simple program that can be downloaded from Microsoft. It can require a bit of hunting but you want Microsoft MPI v6 or later. As of this writing, Microsoft was releasing MPI v7. Once you have MPI downloaded and installed, you ll need to get LS- DYNA MPP installed on your machine. I would recommend just installing the complete package lsdyna_r810_winx64- install.exe (or later), which provides you with the single- and double- precision LS- DYNA and the most recent LS- DYNA SMP Program Manager. In classic mode, one starts the MPI program and attaches a long string of commands to pick your LS- DYNA solver and then of course your analysis job. This is done within a Windows command line window or CMD. The figure shown below shows how traditionally this is done under Windows: Of course, many engineers are adept at writing scripts and just load all their preferences into a script and submit it. This all sounds fine and dandy, but if you are used to the LSTC s LS- DYNA Program Manager (SMP), you are feeling a bit depressed having to go back to the 80 s to run a modern FEA code. LS- DYNA MPP Program Manager for Windows Okay it is assumed at this stage that you have successfully installed MS MPI and have available one of the LS- DYNA MPP solvers on your machine. One will note that when unpacking the solvers that LSTC likes to name them just mppdyna.exe. They do this since MPP users have to type these names or use scripts; hence, short is good. Since we now have a MPP Windows Interface, please feel free to use long descriptive names. For example, I renamed the MPP solvers as: LS- DYNA_MPP_Single- Precision_R810.exe LS- DYNA_MPP_Double- Precision_R810.exe. Please note no spaces or special characters can be used. LS- DYNA MPP Program Manager for Windows Page 2 5

3 Microsoft.NET 4.5 This is a little hiccup that you might run into. Most engineering workstations will have Microsoft s.net framework already installed but if you don t have it you ll need it to run our program. It can be downloaded and installed from Microsoft at us/download/details.aspx?id=30653 Installation and Running LS- DYNA MPP Program Manager for Windows The program can be downloaded from our LS- DYNA site at Predictive Engineering (see Quick Start Workflow at the beginning of this document). Although one may install the program in any place the user may like, our recommendation is to create a new file folder within the current LSDYNA/program directory labeled MPPWindows and then unzip the download file and place all files into this folder. Once this is done, we would recommend to right- click on the executable and create a short- cut to the Desktop. In this manner, one can then just double- click on the icon to launch the program. Once launched for the first time the program will look somewhat like this: It is our hope that the program is self- explanatory. Your input file path and name can contain spaces and standard Windows characters. The Preview line is what is submitted to the mpiexec program. As can be seen, the path and names are truncated as in the SMP program. This is required for the MPI / LS- DYNA interface to work properly. The buttons along the bottom allow the user to submit the standard control switches (kill, SW- 1, SW- 2, etc.). When one saves, the program writes out the Preview line as a.bat file that one can then launch directly from Windows Explorer or edit for additional utility. LS- DYNA MPP Program Manager for Windows Page 3 5

4 LS- DYNA MPP Program Manager for Windows Troubleshooting Windows can t find mpiexec.exe? It means that a PATH variable needs to be set to tell Windows where to look for this program. It should have gotten set during install but things happen. One sets this variable under Environmental Variables. LS- DYNA barks about not finding the license server This means that an environmental variable didn t get set to tell LS- DYNA where to look for a license. This is not the fault of the MPP Program Manager but just life and times with licensing. Within our little program one can set these environmental variables. There are just two environmental variables that need to be set for a network license: lstc_license network lstc_license_server {server name} or {localhost} For MS MPI, one sets these environment variables directly as: - env lstc_license network env lstc_license_server {server name} or {localhost} There is no need for us to have a troubleshooting discussion since LSTC provides a very useful document for network license troubleshoot at and I would recommend taking a look at this link here: and if you don t have it, download the file lstclmui.exe from our LS- DYNA web link or from LSTC and run it. Then for just some really nice general information, I would download and read the LSTC License Manager Installation Guide. It is at our LS- DYNA web link and of course, within LSTC s site. Thus, here s your license troubleshooting quicklist: Check to see if you are licensed for MPP (it will say it within your Server_Data file) Check that you can see your server (ping) Run the lstcmui.exe program and walk through its companion tutorial (see link new_win_license) Not working? Then read the Network PDF and think about what might not be working Still not working? Call us we can work together. LS- DYNA MPP Program Manager for Windows Page 4 5

5 LS- DYNA MPP Comments and Resources There are many little tips and tricks about the LS- DYNA MPP solver but basically one can just run your SMP model straight out of the box with the MPP solver. One of the small little things is that the MPP solver has ditched all ASCII outputs. This means that one needs to reset your options within the *DATABASE_{ASCII} files to dump out the data as binary. For convenience, I just set the BINARY option to 3. LS- DYNA will then just write out the request data in ASCII and BINARY formats. Thus, one can run in either solver and not worry about the output. It is recommended that one reads Appendix O: LS- DYNA MPP User Guide (LSTC LS- DYNA KEYWORD USER S MANUAL VOLUME I) and take a look at under SUPPORT and then DOWNLOAD/INSTALL. Rev- 0 June 2015 This was our first release back in June of It worked but had a few annoying bugs that we just sort of lived with and fixed as needed. There were several interim releases up to Rev- 0.4 to revised and fix small issues. What s New in Rev- 1 June 2016 This revision brought us the little Kill switch on the front page and lots of bug fixes. We had noticed that sometimes it wouldn t truncate long file names and it was a pain to fix. The program was also recoded to be better organized internally for future development. On the Setting s page you ll notice that we added tools to update your license and check it. There are tool tips that show up as you hover over the tabs. In the classic way to start and stop the LSTCLM one would have to open an Admin CMD window and type out the commands. Very old school so we embedded this capability as one click in the program. There is a lot of functionality in the program since it ll remember your settings from the prior run. This is handy for the Advanced Section for output files. What more? We would sincerely appreciate any feedback or suggestions for improvement. LS- DYNA MPP Program Manager for Windows Page 5 5