How Cloud High-Performance Computing Solution on Cloudam Helps BYD Upgrade Its R&D Model to the Next Level.
BYD Co. Ltd. (hereafter BYD) is a publicly-listed Chinese conglomerate manufacturing company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. Its automotive subsidiary BYD Auto Co., Ltd. (hereafter "BYD Auto") is dedicated to automobile manufacturing including new energy vehicles and traditional fuel vehicles, rechargeable batteries, and photovoltaic solar energy. Now, BYD Auto has become China’s largest electric-vehicle maker.
Challenges with On-premise Computing
Most of BYD's customers are multinational enterprises around the world with strict manufacturing standards and requirements which makes it imminent to change the traditional R&D model of the simulation department. Previously, part of the computing workloads of the simulation department was run on independent workstations and shared by multiple people. However, this model was limited by the insufficient resources of a single node and could no longer meet the rapidly growing requirements in simulation, while the other part of the computing workloads were run on local computing clusters, whose system was unable to support the orchestration of workflow and achieve simulation automation. Additionally, BYD has established a number of R&D centers around the globe to keep pace with the vigorous development of new energy vehicles. For each R&D center, there is a huge demand for computing power. These bring challenges to IT operation and maintenance, and cross-regional collaborative R&D.
Committing to Cloudam
To address these challenges, BYD chose Cloudam HPC to meet the high-performance computing needs of automotive simulation and research on autopilot, meanwhile to design an agile, standardized, automated and intelligent R&D model which includes the following features:
1. Workflow orchestration
The ability to arrange the R&D processes across multiple departments into workflows to reduce communication costs;
Template modification to standardize R&D processes, reduce human errors, and lower the learning curve;
Installation and usage of self-developed applications and software catering to the special needs of the development;
The ability to deliver and view computing tasks and workflow on programs by connecting to API.
2. Automated scheduling
Scheduling the latest hardware;
Zero queues during peak demand;
Support for Linux clusters and Windows desktop workstations to adapt to different CAE software.
3. Cross-regional cooperation
Simulation project management including project members and permissions, project workflow orchestration, and so forth facilitates cooperation across departments and regions.
Shifting to an Agile Innovation Model
After Cloudam technical team's dedicated research and analysis of BYD’s complex requirements regarding different software and hardware, they came up with an integrated and standard cloud simulation solution that is easy to use, highly customizable and adaptive to the rapid evolution of simulation technology.
Engineers at BYD can submit jobs through GUI templates, CLI tools, and Cloudam’s API. The system will automatically create a computing cluster on the cloud, select the corresponding operating system and compute tasks. Thus, the complicated jobs before can be done by setting just a few parameters now. Besides, jobs will be triggered according to the workflow, and notifications will be delivered (on-site and email) whenever there is a result or exception, which frees engineers from keeping an eye on the job processes all the time. And engineers are completely worry-free about the deadlines due to the auto degradation mechanism for queuing and AI hardware scheduling system. Moreover, all the operations are run under specific projects where managers have overall control over R&D resources, operations, budget, and members.
Impacts on Intelligent Engineering
The integration with Cloudam’s high-performance computing platform on the cloud has greatly improved the R&D capabilities of the Auto Engineering Research Institute at BYD, and considerably compressed the development cycle. Currently, the applications on the platform not only include crash simulation, structural optimization, external flow field analysis, noise analysis, engine fatigue analysis, etc., but also multiple self-developed software by BYD. With the in-depth research of BYD in electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles, the influence of electromagnetics in automotive system engineering is becoming more and more important. Those influences, such as the process of fast charging and anti-electromagnetic interference on the operating system, have become the new hot spot in Automotive CAE. Technically, the construction of a cloud simulation platform with Cloudam HPC significantly accelerates the realization of BYD's grand goal of 6 new car models per year and an annual output of 800,000 vehicles. About Cloudam HPC Cloudam HPC is a one-stop HPC platform with 300+ pre-installed to deploy immediately. The system can smartly schedule compute nodes and dynamically schedule the software licenses, optimizing workflow and boosting efficiency for engineers and researchers.
Partnered with AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, etc., Cloudam powers your R&D with massive cloud resources without queuing.
You can submit jobs by intuitive templates, SLURM, and Windows/Linux workstations. Whether you are a beginner or a professional, you can always find it handy to run and manage your job.
There is a $30 Free Trial for every new user. Why not register and boost your R&D NOW?