High Performance Computing
for Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS).
Launch simulation with just a few clicksExport fds file from Pyrosim and uploadIntuative and easy to use interfaceRun FDS in the Cloud

FDS in the Cloud

Run FDS fire simulations and modeling in the cloud using Sabalcore’s powerful and easy to use High Performance Computing service. Our HPC Cloud allows fire engineers to easily configure and run FDS simulations. Dramatically increase processing power and complete your simulations quickly.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) is a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of fire-driven fluid flow. The software solves numerically a form of the Navier-Stokes equations appropriate for low-speed, thermally-driven flow, with an emphasis on smoke and heat transport from fires. This type of solver requires traditional high-performance computing (HPC) systems with optimized MPI to complete simulations in a reasonable time.

  • Turn-key – reduce time-to-first simulation, everything is ready to go
  • White-Glove Onboarding – a 1 hour one-on-one onboarding session with a Sabalcore engineer included
  • FDS+MPI over Nvidia InfiniBand networks – perfect for small to very large simulations requiring hundreds of CPU cores and TBs of RAM
  • Save time by running dozens of simulations simultaneously
  • Access data and results during or after the simulation completes directly in the cloud
  • Run Smokeview directly in the cloud
  • Works well with your existing workflow
  • Download results quickly using our proprietary GFT ™ file transfer protocol

More Info

Run your FDS models in the Cloud with Sabalcore HPC.

Bridge the gap between a PC and a High Performance Computing Cluster. Complete FDS simulations fast with Sabalcore’s HPC cloud service.

Bridge the gap between a PC and a High Performance Computing Cluster. Complete FDS simulations fast with Sabalcore’s HPC cloud service.

Run in parallel to increase performance. Import your models from PyroSim™. Remote Visualization for Smokeview and file management.

FDS and Sabalcore MPI

Sabalcore HPC Cloud supports highly optimized Message Passing Interface (MPI) software library routines over high performance Nvidia Infiniband networks. MPI is critical to large Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) computations because it allows the software to break down  computationally expensive fire models across multiple processors and machines, drastically reducing calculation times.

MPI is Essential for FDS in the cloud: A virtual machine’s processors (vCPU) and memory (RAM), such as those found in commodity clouds, are limited to just one virtual machine. A virtual machines significantly limits the processing power required for FDS because it uses OpenMP which relies on shared-memory multithreading. Sabalcore MPI allows FDS to run across multiple processors (each with its own isolated memory space) AND multiple machines to share the heavy computational workload – significantly improving performance.

Handling Complex Geometries: Large FDS models require fine grid resolutions, resulting in millions of cells. By assigning independent meshes to separate MPI processes, FDS can simulate complex buildings without exceeding the memory or thread capacity of a single virtual machine.

Seamless Process Communication: Fire simulation isn’t just about single zones; it’s about physics flowing between spaces. MPI synchronizes the simulation by explicitly passing data (such as heat, smoke, and mass transfer) between the boundaries of adjacent meshes at every time step.

Optimized Multiprocessing: Unlike OpenMP, which relies on shared-memory multithreading, MPI operates on distributed memory. This allows FDS to scale linearly across many cores without the bottleneck of memory-contention issues commonly found when using virtual machines.

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Sabalcore provides “bare-metal” cores only which offers the best performance. Nothing is virtualized. Bare-metal provides the highest processing efficiency and scalability for your most demanding simulations. Typical cloud providers use virtual vCPUs which significantly decreases performance and impacts your simulation time. Sabalcore dedicates a full CPU core and isolated memory space for each FDS process thread which improves simulation time and cost and provides unmatched scalability up to 720 cores for one model.

“Using virtual cores can greatly reduce the performance of FDS.” -NIST

Sabalcore HPC Cloud vs. Amazon AWS

Sabalcore HPC Cloud for FDS and Smokeview

Workstation in the Cloud

Sabalcore’s ssClient with remote desktop capability and command-line interfaces allows for easy migration to the cloud. Run Smokeview while the simulation is running.  The session is persistent and can be accessed anywhere, anytime without interrupting the simulation. Results are stored in your account and can be accessed at anytime during or after the simulation.

More about the ssClient

PyroSim™

It’s easy for PyroSim users to run their simulations at Sabalcore. Simply export the fds file from PyroSim, copy it to your Sabalcore account, and launch the simulation. You can actively control, monitor, and access all the output files of your simulation in real-time using our built-in remote desktop.

Sabalcore HPC Remote Desktop with FDS and Smokeview
Sabalcore Remote Desktop with Fire Dynamic Simulator

Why use Sabalcore HPC Cloud?

Sabalcore HPC systems were specifically designed to run computationally intensive numerical applications with performance, efficiency and reliability in mind. Sabalcore compute systems, storage systems, and networks are bare-metal and operate without performance restrictions. The Sabalcore platform was built specifically for CFD applications that use MPI for multi-node processing such as FDS.

Start simulating quickly. Get the most out of the cloud with our bare-metal HPC clusters. Simply log into the service, upload your model using the built-in transfer client, select your compute resources, and run your models.

Sabalcore is a proud Corporate 100 SFPE partner.

SFPE Corporate 100 Partner

SFPE Corporate 100 Partner Program.

  • "Lightning Fast"

    Access compute resources in seconds.

    Download fast using our proprietary file transfer technology.

    High performance interconnects (NVIDIA® Mellanox® Quantum™ Infiniband) – critical for FDS with MPI

    High performance parallel file system – load is distributed across numerous targets simultaneously for optimal performance.

  • Free Account, free data storage

    User accounts are free. You only pay for CPU time (core-hours) and data storage.

    Pay-per-use billing. Pay only for what you use.

    Data storage included. 100GB free each month.

  • Turn Key

    Access compute resources in seconds.

    Everything is ready to go. Start simulating in minutes.

  • Support

    Back versions of FDS available and easily accessible.

    Extensive batch, queue, and scripting capabilities.

    Technical support included.

Testimonials

I am VERY impressed so far by your service. I had the trial account details in my inbox this morning, and within 2 hours had ported one of our codes onto your platform and run an initial test job. I spent a lot of time last year trying…the compute-on-demand services ‘offered’ by some of your competition. With one of them it took…a month to sort out all the technical problems of porting our code

In almost every way the support and communication provided by Sabalcore has been excellent.

I will again say that support from Sabalcore has been beyond anything I have experienced with on-demand computing. I hope to again use your service in the near future.

Thanks again for all your help, it’s really great to be able to access this type of computing power in an easy way, with great support.

I will definitely recommended [Sabalcore] in the future to anyone interested in HPC.

Over the past 5 years since doing business with Sabalcore, we have have been extremely satisfied with their service. We never experienced any downtime or interruption of service during our extensive production runs. In addition, the performance benefit of running jobs in one tenth the time it would take to run on our in house compute cluster helped keep production on track and profitable. Add to that the outstanding customer service and you have one very happy customer. Thank you for the excellent service. We look forward to doing business with you in the future.

First of all let me give you the feedback about the experience with Sabalcore services: simply excellent. The performance is really impressive [and is] far better than I was expecting.

We would like to thank Sabalcore’s team for the excellent, high-quality services (and support) provided since last year.

I [want] to let you know that we are extremely impressed so far with the level of service (in many aspects including calculation speed and user interface) and are looking forward to continually using your services.

I am personally very happy with the level of service provided, as you have given us everything we requested, and more. I think that without your service we would have had to either alter our timelines or validation procedures, and I am glad we did not have to do so.

Fantastic, it is working now! Thank you for your help, this is great service!

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Free Account and 1,000 free core-hours to get you started. No obligation.

Need pricing details?

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