Remote and local parallel batch runs or design exploration studies

remote single runs

It is possible to perform remote simulations for single runs, but also local or remote parallel batch runs or design exploration studies, without needing to perform any complex configuration. The corresponding setup will vary according to your final goal:

• Run your jobs on a local or on a remote machine

• Launch sequential or parallel jobs

The following table describes the capabilities for local/remote parallel simulations :

Run Type	Local Parallel	Remote parallel	Mixed local & remote parallel
Batch run	Yes	Yes	Yes
Design Exploration	Yes	Yes	Yes

• The service used for remote communications is STDSIMManager.

• Only a group of runs - a job - such as a batch run or a design exploration study can be executed in parallel: a single run cannot be parallelized. However, a single run can be launched in remote mode (on a powerful distant processor, for instance).

• It is possible to enforce a sequential (in other words, a non-parallel) execution of runs by limiting the maximal number of simultaneous runs to 1 (see Setting up a configuration for local parallel or sequential jobs), or by declaring (once only) a single remote host. This can be interesting to limit the number of runtime licenses used at the same time, or to decrease each user's load on a shared cluster.

The configuration of any of the cases specified above is carried out entirely in the simulation Preferences window, see the figure below.

Warning

If the parallel processing options are set to Remote, all jobs will be executed in remote mode, even single runs.

Local setup

local setup

Figure 4: Simulation preferences

If you want to run your jobs on the local machine only, select the Local radio button in the Parallel processing mode group.

Remote or mixed local/remote setup

remote setup

If you want to run your jobs on a remote machine, select the Remote option in the Parallel processing mode group. A table for the remote host settings will be displayed. To use both local and remote processors at the same time, remote mode needs to be selected and the local machine (localhost) needs to be declared as a remote host (as shown in the above screenshot). Enter N times the name of the same multiprocessor host to use N of its processors.

Note that as of Rev 11, the choice between local and remote simulations does not only affect batch runs and design exploration but also sequential runs (and particularly single runs). It is thus possible to perform a standard simulation on a remote computer just by selecting Remote and specifying an available remote host.

In the following sections, we explain the Simulation settings and the setup of the STDSIMManager service for remote communications.

HPC

You can also run jobs using HPC. See the High Performance Computing manual for full details on this feature.