Submitting and Monitoring Ansys EM HPC Jobs

Jobs may be submitted to the Windows HPC Scheduler using any of the following methods:

Using the Submit HPC Job dialog box
Using the Windows HPC Job Manager GUI
Using the Windows HPC Command Line Tools
Using the Windows PowerShell

Client Utilities from the Microsoft HPC Pack, must be installed on the submit host to use any of these methods to submit a job to a cluster. The Submit HPC Job dialog box will be unable to contact the cluster head node if the client utilities are not installed.

This document covers the first method. See the Microsoft documentation for information on the other three methods.

Jobs may be submitted from any Microsoft Windows host meeting the following requirements:

For submitting jobs to the Windows HPC scheduler, the Desktop process must run on a node that is configured for submission of jobs to the Windows HPC cluster. That is, the Windows HPC Client Utilities must be installed on the node, and network communication from the Desktop node to the head node of the cluster must be allowed. For Ansys Electromagnetics Suite 2024 R2, Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 (or later) client utilities are required. Using a computer on the network is not supported for submission of jobs to the Windows HPC cluster.
When submitting jobs to a Windows HPC cluster, the user must also specify the head node of the cluster to which the jobs will be submitted. When the user selects the "Windows HPC" scheduler in the "Choose scheduler" list, the Head Node edit control is enabled. The user may enter the Windows HPC cluster head node name into the edit box. Alternatively, the head node may be selected using a "Browse for Computer" browser by pressing the ellipsis [...] button.
The Windows HPC Pack client utilities are installed on the submission host.
Network communication between the submission host and the Windows HPC Cluster head node is permitted; there is a network connection between these hosts that is not blocked by any firewall or the like.
The submission user is permitted to submit jobs to the Windows HPC Cluster.

Job Monitoring

Windows HPC Jobs may be monitored using the Monitor Job dialog box, which is brought up by the Tools > Job Management > Monitor Jobs... command. This dialog bos may also be brought up by checking the Begin monitoring this job now check box when a job is successfully submitting using the job submission dialog box. You can also select the Simulation tab of the ribbon and select the Monitor icon. You can monitor this job either automatically (by checking the option) or through the Tools> Job Management> Monitor Jobs... command. For more details, see Monitor Jobs window.

In addition to the above requirements to allow job monitoring the following is also necessary:

Network communication between the submission host and all Windows HPC Cluster nodes where the job may run is permitted; there is a network connection between these hosts that is not blocked by any firewall or the like.

Cluster Configuration

Any job running on a Windows HPC Cluster that is distributed over multiple compute hosts requires network communication between processes running on these hosts. The cluster must be configured to allow this communication. Any firewall or other security software must be disabled or configured to allow communication between any of the compute hosts were a job could run.

Job Submission User Profile on Cluster Compute Nodes

In order for a job to run correctly, the submission user's profile must be accessible and properly initialized on the cluster compute nodes where the job runs. If the Ansoft/temp subdirectory of the user's "My Documents" directory does not exist or is not accessible on the compute cluster nodes where a job runs, the batchoptions for the job will not be processed correctly, resulting in job failure. One way to ensure that this directory is created on each compute host is for the submission user to login to each compute host and run the product GUI one time.