Glossary

Here are definitions of some common terms that you may see when using Ansys Gateway powered by AWS or viewing the help:

AD Connector Service: A proxy service that authenticates users against your on-premises Active Directory and manages requests sent to the AWS Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) from Ansys Gateway powered by AWS.
Autoscaling Cluster: An HPC cluster that is scaled up or down automatically to meet workload demands. Scaling determines the number of nodes that are provisioned to do the work.
Availability zone: A location defined in AWS which is mapped to a physical data center in an AWS region. A data center provides the hardware and networking systems needed for data storage and high-performance computing.
AWS: Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a cloud platform that offers compute and storage infrastructure from data centers around the world.
Budget Cap: A spending limit placed on a project space to help manage costs.
EBS volume: Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) is used to provide storage volumes for use with EC2 instances.
EC2: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. Provides virtual computing environments known as instances.
File Storage Server: A virtual machine used for shared file storage. On a file storage server, Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) is used to provide storage volumes for use with EC2 instances.
FQDN: Fully Qualified Domain Name. The complete address of a computer that can be accessed on the Internet.
GPU: Graphics Processing Unit. A processor designed to accelerate graphics rendering.
GPU computing: Accelerates simulations by offloading some of the compute-intensive calculations to the GPU.
GRID driver: A driver for NVIDIA GPUs which enables accelerated graphics display as well as GPU computing.
HPC Cluster: Consists of several compute servers that are networked together. Each server is called a node. The nodes work in parallel with each other, boosting processing speed to deliver high performance computing.
Hyper-threading: A technology on Intel hardware which allows a single physical processor core to behave like two logical processors, essentially allowing two independent threads to run in parallel. This enables more data to be processed in less time, improving performance and efficiency.
IAM: Identity and Access Management. A web service that helps you securely control access to Amazon Web Services (AWS) resources.
Instance: A virtual machine used for computing or storage in AWS Cloud.
Instance Capacity: The availability of EC2 instances in a selected AWS Availability Zone at a given time. Instance capacity changes as users launch EC2 instances into Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs).
Instance Type: A combination of CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity. You select an Amazon EC2 instance type when creating a virtual resource in Ansys Gateway powered by AWS. For more information see Amazon EC2 Instance Types.
IP Address: A unique string of characters used to identify a device that is connected to a network and uses the Internet Protocol for communication.
KDE Desktop: K Desktop Environment (KDE) provides a graphical user interface for working on a Linux machine. For example, KDE provides a file manager and window manager.
NFS Storage: The Network File System (NFS) protocol is a mechanism for creating a file system on a Linux virtual machine. Enables users to access files on a remote server.
OS Image: A template for creating new virtual desktop instances. It is a file that contains a virtual disk that contains a bootable operating system.
Placement Group: When creating a cluster, a placement group is a way of grouping the EC2 instances in a single AWS Availability Zone to facilitate communication between nodes, providing low latency and high throughput. For more information refer to Placement groups in the AWS documentation.
Project Space: An area containing resources such as virtual desktops and HPC clusters. Each project space is accessible to selected users who have been assigned permissions in the project space.
Project Space Administrator: A user who has been granted 'Admin' permission in a project space. They can add resources, control user permissions, and set budgets in that project space.
RDP: Microsoft's Remote Desktop Protocol. Allows you to connect to a remote computer. The RDP client is used to deliver a Windows remote desktop session.
Service Quota: The maximum value for the resources, actions, and items in your AWS account. Having sufficient quota is necessary to provision EC2 instances, but does not guarantee on-demand EC2 instance capacity at all times. Quota increases can be requested in the AWS console. For details see AWS service quotas in the AWS documentation.
Shutdown Timer: A cost-saving feature that shuts down a resource after a period of inactivity.
Simultaneous Multithreading: A technology that allows a single physical processor core to behave like two logical processors, essentially allowing two independent threads to run in parallel. This enables more data to be processed in less time, improving performance and efficiency.
Slurm: Simple Linux Utility for Resource Management (SLURM). A cluster management and job scheduling system for Linux clusters.
SMB Storage: Network file sharing service on a Windows virtual machine. File sharing functionality is delivered using the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol. Enables users to access files on a remote server.
Tags: Labels that can be applied to objects such as project spaces and resources to help administrators track ownership, usage, and so on.
Tenant Administrator: A user who is part of the Tenant Admin group in AWS. In Ansys Gateway powered by AWS, a tenant administrator can create and manage project spaces, add and delete users, configure applications and cluster packages, and perform other top-level administrative tasks.
Tesla driver: A driver for NVIDIA GPUs which enables GPU computing.
VDI: Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) technology enables you to run Cloud-hosted applications in a remote desktop session on your local computer.
Virtual Desktop: A virtual computer system that is accessed over the Internet. It has the functionality of a physical computer but is not tied to a physical machine. A virtual desktop looks and behaves just like a local desktop.
VPC: Virtual Private Cloud. A virtual networking environment in the AWS cloud which is dedicated to your AWS account. AWS instances are launched into VPCs. For more information refer to https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/index.html.