NRC22 Eastern Europe
Cloud-based Simulations in Rimac Technology
Ivan Krajinović
Simulations Department, Rimac Technology
Abstract
Cloud computing is one of the ongoing trends in numerical simulations. Across multiple industries there exist trend to decrease costs of new product development, mostly by decreasing the investment physical prototyping and testing. Additionally, physical testing has its limitation, from number of sensors per device under test (DUT) to frequency of testing, which is not limited only by speed and costs of production, but also with the availability of testing facilities.
Virtual prototyping and virtual testing using sophisticated numerical codes is becoming more and more dominant way of doing development. To successfully perform such task powerful HPC cluster are needed. They are either built on-premise within the companies or rented from different government organizations or universities. Another way to access HPC computing power is HPC cloud computing.
There are barriers to uptake, either having on-premise HPC cluster or a cloud solution2. Two leading barriers for on premise HPC cluster are high software and hardware costs, while for a cloud-based solution those are total cost of ownership and data security.
Rimac Technology HPC journey started with utilization of one university HPC cluster, then moved to on-premise HPC cluster and finally having a hybrid solution combining on-premise HPC cluster with a cloud solution.
Initially, during first half of 2021, detailed Proof-of Concept (PoC) was done with several cloud providers. The results, speed and Total Costs of Ownership (TCO) has been compared to Rimac Technology on-premise solution. Microsoft Azure with UberCloud platform has been selected as preferred vendors.
Now, almost two years using cloud solution there are multiple lessons learned from POC, creating custom solution, and putting it in production. Multiple benefits of using cloud computations are also going to be discussed.
2Computing Platforms for Engineering Simulations 2015 vs 2020, Lee Margetts, University of Manchester, Benchmark , July 2021
Biography
Dr. Ivan Krajinović is Head of Simulations at Rimac Technology, Croatia. He organized and leads the Simulations department, which is responsible for structural, electrical and thermal simulations of different components of electric powertrain. Simulations department is working on all major Rimac Technology’s projects for major automotive OEMs. Showcase of what has been done are components that power Rimac’s electric hypercar Nevera, fastest accelerating production car in the world.
