We are happy to announce the v0.18 release of the Inductiva API, with several simulator upgrades and improvements to user experience. Let’s go through the novelties one by one! 😀
🚀 New and Upgraded Simulators
We have expanded our cloud HPC offer with a new simulator (CalculiX) and added more recent versions for several others, giving you more power and flexibility. Here’s a look at what’s new since our last release:
- CalculiX ⚙️ A robust, open-source Finite Element Analysis (FEA) package designed for tackling a wide range of structural engineering problems.
- SWAN ( v41.51 which includes UnSWAN) 🌊 A powerful version of the SWAN wave model that supports unstructured grids, perfect for simulating wave conditions in coastal areas with complex geometries.
- OpenFOAM (ESI v2506 & Foundation v13) 💨 We’ve added the latest versions of this leading open-source toolbox for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), enabling everything from aerodynamics to multiphase flow simulations.
- OpenTELEMAC (v8p4r1) 🏞️ Explore free-surface hydraulics with the newest version of this comprehensive suite, ideal for modeling rivers, estuaries, and other environmental flows.
- AMR-Wind (v3.5.0, v3.6.0, v3.7.0) 🌬️ Simulate wind turbine and wind farm physics with high fidelity using the latest releases of this specialized CFD code from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
- CaNS (v3.1.0) 🌀 massively-parallel numerical simulations of fluid flows.
Finally we added experimental support for a new hydraulics simulator, let us know if you want to try it out and provide feedback:
- 🧪 HEC-RAS 🏞️- a first integration of an industry standard simulator for modeling river hydraulics, open-channel flow, and flood analysis. We are currently benchmarking it and hearing from early adopters.
Real-time System Metrics
In our last release, we introduced system metrics tracking (like CPU and RAM usage) to help you make sure you’re using resources efficiently. For instance, you could check that all vCPUs were being used in parallel to make the most of a powerful cloud machine.
However, there was a catch: these metrics were only available after a simulation finished. This made it hard to understand in real-time if a task was running efficiently and kill it early to avoid wasting credits.
Well, that limitation is now gone! 🚀 The System Metrics tab in the Inductiva web console now updates automatically with fresh data at a sub-minute frequency. This gives you the live feedback you need to monitor performance and make informed decisions on the fly.
Achievements
You might have noticed that some Inductiva users started sharing their scientific computing achievements on LinkedIn! For example, how many vCPU-hours of simulations they have already completed using Inductiva.
This is a fun way to build your reputation in the engineering and HPC communities. 🙂
The more you simulate, the more achievements you unlock. For example here is a screenshot from one of our engineers, who runs a lot of benchmarks to compare the performance of simulators across different cloud machines. He is about to reach the 200k vCPU-hours achievement:
We look forward to celebrating your achievements too!
Improved Python Editor
Previously known as “Playground”, our online Python editor has been expanded to include example snippets for every simulator we support. Just select your simulator of interest on the dropbox and the adequate code snippet will appear. You can then just click “Run” and the simulation will start.
Other UI improvements for Desktop and Mobile
- New drag-and-drop upload of folders – it is now easier than ever to upload files to your Inductiva cloud storage. Just drag-and-drop the folder into the new UI component.
- Tiles View for Projects and Benchmarks – you can now chose to see your projects as tiles, rather than list on a table format. This is especially useful if you are logging in from a mobile device as the layout is more reactive.
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- Bulk task actions inside a Project – ever wanted to move multiple tasks from one project to another, in one click? Now you can, just select multiple tasks and the selected action will apply to all of them.
- New layout for Account tab on sidebar – you might have noticed that we moved the account tab to the upper left corner so that it is easier to access. This is a small change, but greatly improves user experience.
- CTRL-click to open in new tab – when you click on rows of a table (in storage, tasks lists, etc) you can force it to open on a new browser tab, by pressing simultaneously the CTRL key (or Command if you are on Mac OS). This is another “small detail” that improves usability.
Coming soon
Stay tuned for a couple of new exciting features that we are working on:
- a Notification system built-in into the Inductiva Web Console
- “No files left behind!” – a clever automatic mechanism to save all the output files to permanent storage, even when your spot instance is preempted by the underlying cloud provider.
