Altair Case Studies Optimizing Engineering Cluster Performance at GE's Oil & Gas Business

	Optimizing Engineering Cluster Performance at GE's Oil & Gas Business Altair

Optimizing Engineering Cluster Performance at GE's Oil & Gas Business

Altair

Technology Category	Sensors - Gas Sensors Sensors - Utility Meters
Applicable Industries	Oil & Gas Transportation
Applicable Functions	Logistics & Transportation
Use Cases	Inventory Management Time Sensitive Networking
Services	System Integration
Challenge	GE's Oil & Gas business was facing a significant challenge in job scheduling for their applications. The gas turbine engineering group was upgrading its High-Performance Computing (HPC) resources, moving from an 8-CPU UNIX server to a 20-CPU HP ProLiant 380 cluster running Red Hat Linux. However, they encountered unexpected difficulties in job scheduling using open source code. The situation was becoming increasingly difficult to manage, causing delays in production. The group leader, Alessandro Ciani, was tasked with getting the cluster into production but was frustrated with the delays. The situation was urgent, and a solution was needed to ensure the system could be put into production. Read More
About Customer	Nuovo Pignone, now a key technological component of GE's Oil & Gas business, began life 100 years ago as a foundry. Today, more than 20,000 machines manufactured by this GE business are operated worldwide by major companies to keep petroleum products moving from oil rigs to storage facilities to refineries to distribution points. The engineering groups at GE's Oil & Gas Florence headquarters work extensively with commercial and proprietary CFD and CEA tools which are used to build and test product designs. The gas turbine engineering group designs gas turbines that are installed in the pipeline system or offshore for mechanical drive applications. Their customers are major petroleum companies like Shell and Texaco, with sites around the world. Read More
Solution	Altair, a global technology company providing solutions in product development, high-performance computing and data intelligence, was approached to provide a solution. Instead of a standard presentation, Altair suggested a pilot installation of their PBS Professional® workload management software. This integrated workload management solution was optimized for running the StarCD application. The GE engineering team was soon able to submit and manage its StarCD workload with confidence. Following the success of the pilot, GE's Oil & Gas business purchased PBS Professional licenses for all CPUs in the cluster and hired Altair to integrate their other applications into their PBS Professional cluster. The cluster was expanded by adding heterogeneous nodes, and all 90 processors in the cluster and the corresponding application licenses were efficiently managed with PBS Professional. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Sensors - Gas Sensors

Sensors - Utility Meters

Applicable Industries

Oil & Gas

Transportation

Applicable Functions

Logistics & Transportation

Use Cases

Inventory Management

Time Sensitive Networking

Services

System Integration

Challenge

GE's Oil & Gas business was facing a significant challenge in job scheduling for their applications. The gas turbine engineering group was upgrading its High-Performance Computing (HPC) resources, moving from an 8-CPU UNIX server to a 20-CPU HP ProLiant 380 cluster running Red Hat Linux. However, they encountered unexpected difficulties in job scheduling using open source code. The situation was becoming increasingly difficult to manage, causing delays in production. The group leader, Alessandro Ciani, was tasked with getting the cluster into production but was frustrated with the delays. The situation was urgent, and a solution was needed to ensure the system could be put into production.

About Customer

Nuovo Pignone, now a key technological component of GE's Oil & Gas business, began life 100 years ago as a foundry. Today, more than 20,000 machines manufactured by this GE business are operated worldwide by major companies to keep petroleum products moving from oil rigs to storage facilities to refineries to distribution points. The engineering groups at GE's Oil & Gas Florence headquarters work extensively with commercial and proprietary CFD and CEA tools which are used to build and test product designs. The gas turbine engineering group designs gas turbines that are installed in the pipeline system or offshore for mechanical drive applications. Their customers are major petroleum companies like Shell and Texaco, with sites around the world.

Solution

Altair, a global technology company providing solutions in product development, high-performance computing and data intelligence, was approached to provide a solution. Instead of a standard presentation, Altair suggested a pilot installation of their PBS Professional® workload management software. This integrated workload management solution was optimized for running the StarCD application. The GE engineering team was soon able to submit and manage its StarCD workload with confidence. Following the success of the pilot, GE's Oil & Gas business purchased PBS Professional licenses for all CPUs in the cluster and hired Altair to integrate their other applications into their PBS Professional cluster. The cluster was expanded by adding heterogeneous nodes, and all 90 processors in the cluster and the corresponding application licenses were efficiently managed with PBS Professional.

Impact #1	The implementation of Altair's PBS Professional® workload management software has significantly improved the efficiency and productivity of GE's Oil & Gas business. The engineering team can now submit and manage its StarCD workload with confidence, reducing delays and increasing productivity. The cluster has been expanded and is now able to handle a larger workload. The solution has also provided the opportunity for future improvements, such as harvesting unused compute cycles from engineering workstations and resource-sharing with another of GE's Oil & Gas engineering groups. The success of this solution has led to considerations for PBS Professional to become an enterprise-wide solution, further enhancing the company's operational efficiency.

Impact #1

The implementation of Altair's PBS Professional® workload management software has significantly improved the efficiency and productivity of GE's Oil & Gas business. The engineering team can now submit and manage its StarCD workload with confidence, reducing delays and increasing productivity. The cluster has been expanded and is now able to handle a larger workload. The solution has also provided the opportunity for future improvements, such as harvesting unused compute cycles from engineering workstations and resource-sharing with another of GE's Oil & Gas engineering groups. The success of this solution has led to considerations for PBS Professional to become an enterprise-wide solution, further enhancing the company's operational efficiency.

Benefit #1	Expanded the cluster by adding heterogeneous nodes, increasing the total to 45 two-processor nodes.
Benefit #2	Efficiently managed all 90 processors in the cluster and the corresponding application licenses with PBS Professional.
Benefit #3	15 to 20 engineers are able to run jobs on the gas turbine engineering cluster from their desktop PCs simultaneously.

Benefit #1

Expanded the cluster by adding heterogeneous nodes, increasing the total to 45 two-processor nodes.

Benefit #2

Efficiently managed all 90 processors in the cluster and the corresponding application licenses with PBS Professional.

Benefit #3

15 to 20 engineers are able to run jobs on the gas turbine engineering cluster from their desktop PCs simultaneously.

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Overview

Optimizing Engineering Cluster Performance at GE's Oil & Gas Business

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit