Auto Research Center, LLC uses testing devices such as wind tunnel, CFD Elements software, a seven post rig and a drive train test rig to provide analysis for customers that include professional automotive racing teams, automotive manufacturers, delivery vehicle manufacturers, and heavy duty truck and trailer manufacturers.
CHALLENGES FACED BEFORE THE CLOUD
Auto Research Center maintains its own in-house high performance computing data center for maximum customer privacy. Current cluster computing power includes more than 10 teraFLOPS and 600+ cores.
More than 1,000 additional processors are also accessible remotely outside of the headquarters.
“We use our own in-house cluster resources for external customer work where strict levels of security are a requirement,” said ARC Director of Analytics Jean-Michel Esclafer de La Rode. “We also develop our own Elements software in-house. We found ourselves in a s situation where all of our customer work was using up all of our resources. We turned to the cloud so that development of our software would not be delayed. The access to extra cores on the cloud allowed for more throughput in the same period of time. The run times were reduced compared to our in-house resources.”
BENEFITS OF WORKING ON THE CLOUD
Auto Research Center found that the key benefits to working in the ACTnowHPC cloud are in the job execution speed, access to RAM, HPC support and maintenance.“Run times were up to 20%faster than our resources. File transfer times were not of concern. The overall customer experience is pleasant, and support response times are relatively fast compared to other clouds.”