In the Parallel Settings tab (enabled when Use Multiple Servers is toggled), you can choose how to launch the multiple Servers. You may choose between EnSight Resources (default and legacy method; see Use Resource Management) or MPI. While EnSight Resources are still supported, over time they will be deprecated in favor of MPI. Future versions of EnSight should see significant performance gains due to increasing MPI support by EnSight.
You may also choose between running all the Servers on one computer, the one specified by Server Machine Name, or running the multiple Servers on multiple computers. If using multiple computers is selected, you can either specify the list of computer names or select a text file containing the multiple computer names. If using EnSight Resources, the file specified must be an EnSight Resource file (see Resource Files). If using MPI, the file specified is simply a text file with one hostname per line.
If using MPI, you can choose which MPI implementation to use as well as which interconnect method to use.
Note: The nodes specified, whether directly or via a file must include the computer specified by Server Machine Name.
If using Intel MPI and multiple servers, the list or file specifying multiple servers must include the Server Machine Name, first, unless using a scheduler.
If using Intel MPI, the multiple servers must be similar configurations. If you have errors starting with Intel MPI, try setting the environment variable on the servers: I_MPI_PLATFORM=zero.
Currently, using MPI on Windows with EnSight is limited to running solely on the single computer running EnSight Launcher. Typically, the hostname 'localhost' or the IP address 127.0.0.1 is used to specify this. Additionally, one of the Intel MPI versions must be used.
Fewer computers may be specified than indicated by Number of Servers. If so, EnSight will still start the number of Servers indicated by Number of Servers; they will simply be started in round-robin fashion on the computers specified. Therefore, multiple Servers may run on the same computer.