Running CFD Simulations in the Cloud

Licensing Autodesk® CFD for running in the cloud

You must have an Autodesk® account to run CFD jobs in the cloud. You can confirm your login through http://accounts.autodesk.com/. Additionally, your login must have entitlements for running jobs in the cloud.

To sign into your Autodesk® Account

When you start a CFD simulation to run in the cloud, a prompt asks you to sign into your Autodesk® account if you are not already signed in.
In the Autodesk - Sign In dialog box, enter either the Autodesk ID or the e-mail address you used when you registered your account.
Enter your Password.
Click Sign In.

You are successfully signed in when your login name (or e-mail address) replaces the word "Sign In" on the Sign-In button:

Running Autodesk® CFD Simulations in the cloud

The fundamental difference between running locally and running in the cloud is where simulations are run. When running on the desktop, all simulations are run on local or remote computers on a local network, and a traditional software licensing system meters usage. When running on the cloud, simulations are run on the cloud, and Autodesk® meters usage through Cloud Credits. Note that to run on the cloud, your account name must have a cloud entitlement and you must have sufficient Cloud Credits.

Benefit of cloud usage

A locally solved job may appear to run faster than the same job solved on the cloud. The upload and download are extra time expenses that are not present in the local solve.

A single License can solve only one simulation at a time on local machines. Large analyses may also cause machine performance degradation.

Running on the Cloud offloads the strain on your local resources and runs simulations in parallel.

Monitoring your CFD cloud jobs

The Simulation Job Manager provides real-time status information about your CFD jobs running in the cloud. There are two ways to open the Simulation Job Manager:

From the Windows® Start menu, click All Programs > Autodesk > Autodesk Simulation Job Manager > Simulation Job Manager.
Alternatively, click the Simulation Job Manager icon in the Windows® Notification Area.

For more information about the Simulation Job Manager, see the Simulation Job Manager topic.

Note: The Simulation Job Manager replaces the Job Monitor used in the desktop version as the tool for monitoring simulation status.

Runtime Limitations

Your Autodesk® CFD cloud analysis has a run limit of 3 days. If the 3-day limit is reached before the maximum number of iterations, your results are automatically downloaded. At this time, you can choose to resubmit your analysis by resuming from the last iteration. Confirm that the last saved iteration is shown in the Continue From line in the Solve dialog before resuming.

Note: Resuming the analysis from the last iteration is equivalent to submitting a new job in the cloud.

Troubleshooting Issues with Cloud Solving: Enable Account Benefits

In most cases, difficulties associated with solving on the cloud are due to an issue with the SJM Cache or to an entitlement issue. Prior to investigating these issues, however, be sure to enable the "Web Support" and "Product Updates" benefits for the contract associated with the CFD-cloud service entitlement. You can find these options on the Edit Access dialog while working with the Contract Manager. Enabling these two benefits has been shown to resolve such issues with a number of customer accounts.