Configuring the Affinities

You can set the affinities for activities to find the proper station (remote computer) for execution. In addition, you can define a co-simulation group. A co-simulation group is a group of activities at the same level of the simulation process hierarchy that will run at the same time.

See Also
Creating a Co-Simulation Flow
Using Distributed Resource Management
  1. Right-click the activity whose affinities you want to edit, and select Activity Options.
    The Activity Options dialog box appears.
  2. From the Activity Options dialog box, click the Affinities tab.
  3. Set any of the following options:
    • Operating system. Select the operating system required for running this activity. You can choose Any Platform, Windows, or UNIX.
    • Any OS. Select the name of the operating system for which the activity will search while running. Depending on the operating system that you selected, you can choose Any OS or one of the supported operating systems.
    • Version. Specify the version number of the operating system/name combination required for running this activity.
      Note: This option is not available if the Any option is selected from either the Operating system or Any OS lists.
    • Station name. Specify the name of the station on which this activity is to run. You can specify more than one station by listing the stations' names with a single space between them (no separating characters are necessary). In this case 3DOrchestrate will choose one from the available stations that match the other affinities specified on this tab.

      It is recommended that you leave this field blank to allow 3DOrchestrate to choose the best station for execution based on workload, availability, and other factors.

      To view a list of stations currently connected to 3DOrchestrate, click located on the right side of the Station name text box. The Select Stations dialog box appears, displaying details about all the stations connected to the 3DOrchestrate. You can use this dialog box to easily choose stations to add.

  4. Select Run on submitting host to have the activity run on the same computer that submitted the job. You must make sure that a station is started on that computer.
  5. In the Custom text box, enter any customized affinities for this activity.

    Note: You can enter any tag or word to match any station that also specifies the tag or word.

  6. From the Location group list, select the working directory.

    When the activity runs, Optimization Process Composer generates output in a directory below the working directory, where the name of the directory is the location group that you entered. Activities with the same location group will run on the same 3DOrchestrate Station and generate output in the same directory (under the working directory). Conversely, activities with different location groups will generate output in different directories and can run on different Computer Orchestration Stations, provided there are no other affinities forcing them to use the same station.

    Note: If the Cleanup option in the activity execution options is configured to remove the files in the working directory (On Success or Always), the location group directory will be deleted after the simulation activity has completed. As a result, any files that were in location directory will not be available to the next activity that tries to access them, and your activity will fail. Therefore, if you are using a location group to share files across activities, you must set the Cleanup option on all activities that use the group to Never.

  7. Optional: In the Co-simulation group list, enter a unique name that describes the co-simulation group that you want to create.

    If you are adding the activity to an existing co-simulation group, select the group from the Co-simulation group list.

  8. Select the DRM mode:
    OptionDescription
    Default Uses the default distributed resource management (DRM), which is an enterprise load-balancing framework that uses 3DOrchestrate and does not require any additional third-party software.
    LSF Uses a third-party DRM system that can optimize the utilization of compute resources for high-performance computing tasks.
    Cloud Runs activities with supported adapters on a Dassault Systèmes cloud server if your organization has access. The user assistance for each adapter describes whether it offers cloud support; for more information about adapters, see Using Adapters.
  9. Click Ok to save your changes and to close the Activity Options dialog box.