The following elements, provided with Ansys Mechanical APDL, make up the Mechanical APDL as a Server capability:

The Mechanical APDL as a Server interface exists alongside the graphical user interface and the batch mode interface. It is made available by starting Mechanical APDL in server mode, as described in Starting Mechanical APDL in Server Mode. A client connected to the Mechanical APDL as a Server interface can then be used to issue commands remotely to the running Mechanical APDL session.

The information necessary to connect to the Mechanical APDL as a Server session is stored as an Interoperable Object Reference (IOR) string in a text file on the server machine when the session is started. This IOR string is unique to the session and can be used by a client application to read all necessary information to connect to the Mechanical APDL as a Server session (for example, hostname, port number, protocol). For further details, see Mechanical APDL as a Server Session Management.

You can use the Mechanical APDL as a Server Software Development Kit (SDK) to build your own custom client application in any programming language which supports the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA). The SDK is composed of a set of Interface Definition Language (IDL) files which, when compiled with a 3rd party CORBA compiler, provide a set of libraries which you can include in your application to enable communication with Mechanical APDL as a Server. For further details, see Mechanical APDL as a Server Software Development Kit (SDK).