Software + Services for
Engineers.
*Steven Johnston, †Phillip Marsh, *Simon J. Cox and *Kenji Takeda
*Microsoft Institute for HPC, School of Engineering Sciences, University of Southampton,
United Kingdom.
†Microsoft, Thames Valley Park, Reading, United Kingdom.
Email:sjj698@zepler.org
Microsoft Institute for High Performance
Computing @ Southampton
Dr Kenji Takeda & Prof Simon Cox
“Our aim is to demonstrate why,
where, and how we are exploiting
current and future Microsoft tools
and technologies to make the
engineering design process faster,
cheaper and better.”
www.mihpc.net
Centre for Fluid Mechanics Simulation
•
“To develop means to dramatically increase
simulation power, revolutionise the design
process and transform user interface in order
to provide tools to exploit multi-disciplinary
optimisation and so bring products to market
in extremely short timescales”
•
Consortium includes: Airbus, ARA, Rolls-Royce,
BAE Systems, BMT Fluid Mechanics, MBDA,
and WilliamsF1…
•
University of Southampton, School of
Engineering Sciences will develop proof of
concepts with Airbus, Rolls-Royce and BAE
Systems developed between showing how
“…current and future Microsoft tools, technologies and
platforms can be exploited to make the engineering
design process faster, cheaper and better.”
Overview
• Introduction
• Software + Services
• User driven Proof of Concepts (PoC)
– Rolls Royce
– Airbus
– BAE
• Q&A
Introduction
Objectives
• Accelerate the understanding of engineering systems and
product development
• Investigate the enterprise engineering process
• Separate infrastructure from engineering
Using user-driven Proof of Concepts (PoC)
Software + Services
• Fat client or thin Client
• Local or mobile or cloud application
• S+S is a hybrid of designs
– REST
– SOA
– SaaS
– Web 2.0
Rolls Royce PoC
• Formalise the engineering design and optimisation
process (currently script based)
• Orchestration of computationally intensive Gas Turbine
blade simulation
• Key Technologies
– Windows Workflow Foundation
– Windows HPC Server (v1)
– Visual Studio 2005
Authoring
Workflow (WWF)
Visual Studio
Workflow
Services
Compute resources
State
Execution
Compute Cluster
Services (CCS)
Runtime
Tracking
Activities
Persistence
Monitor
Compute
Custom Interface
Reporting
Local machine
GUI
Linux Cluster
Web Browser
Custom Interface
MS
SQL
MS
SQL
MS
SQL
MS
SQL
Workflow Workflow Workflow Workflow
persistence templates execution tracking
Rolls Royce PoC -Features
• Workflow
– Reusability
– Quality assurance
– Separation of WF user and WF creator
– Tracking (Data provenience or monitoring)
• Interoperability between Windows and Linux
• Demonstrated applicability of commodity technologies to
challenging engineering problems
Airbus PoC
• Data Intensive collaborative working across multiple
sites
• Business objects
Model -> Mesh -> Flow solution
• Key Technologies
– Sharepoint Server
– Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
Airbus PoC - Features
• LDAP/AD user credentials
• Interoperability with existing systems (Python client)
• Robust, reliable and scalable (multi-site)
• Demonstrated considerable simplification and
consolidation of technology stack using Microsoft
technologies
BAE PoC
• How to capture and retain knowledge
• Provide an audit trail and thought process
• How to introduce new engineers to ongoing work
Key Technologies (mostly Beta & RC)
– Windows Server 2008 – HyperV RC0
– Windows HPC Server 2008 Beta 2
– SQL Server 2008 CTP6
– Office Communication Server
BAE PoC - Features
• Custom client
– Start tasks
– Associate documents/files/chats/workflows with task
– Full text search
• Virtualised infrastructure (Hyper-V)
• Knowledge capture (automatic OCS chat saving)
• Multiple data format search ( Ifilter in SQL server)
• File streaming (SQL managed data files)
Summary
• Each PoC addresses a different area of the enterprise
engineering process
• Demonstrated technology capabilities
• Each PoC is a general case and the solutions applicable to
other domains
• By separating audit and infrastructure, workers can focus
on their expert areas
Questions?
*Steven Johnston, †Phillip Marsh, *Simon J. Cox and *Kenji Takeda
*Microsoft Institute for HPC, School of Engineering Sciences, University of Southampton,
United Kingdom.
†Microsoft, Thames Valley Park, Reading, United Kingdom.
Email:sjj698@zepler.org