SimEnterprise Extending Simulation to the Enterprise
4
SimEnterprise Extending Simulation to the Enterprise Enterprise Simulation Challenge The companies that excel in a global economy will be those that can respond quickly to changing customer expectations, business opportunities, economic conditions, and technology advances. Historically, companies have used physical prototyping to verify that products meet the rigorous demands of the real world. This has been rapidly changing as companies transform themselves to respond with speed and flexibility to a changing global landscape. They are relying more and more on simulation in place of physical test for the product innovation process. As simulation moves to the forefront of the innovation cycle, simulation practices themselves must evolve from their current disconnected islands of product support activities toward enterprise integrated solutions. The typical simulation process today involves highly skilled specialists building and solving simulation models across multiple specialized simulation tools. It is a long, serial process from beginning to end. One recent survey reported that a typical engineering organization uses more than 43 different simulation tools scattered across disparate expert analyst groups. Each tool solves a subset or a single domain of the overall simulation process with each specialist following his own practice based on individual knowledge and skills. Each tool also has a unique data model which requires that multiple data translations take place between each simulation step. Consequently, data integrity and an audit-trail (or pedigree) is lost. There is no ability to re-use simulation data; no traceability to the process; a lack of consistency and repeatability; and real-world interactions across disciplines are lost. In the end, the simulation process happens much too slowly and is decoupled from the overall business processes of the organization. The game-changing opportunity for product innovation advantage is to adopt an enterprise simulation platform that is integrated with the business-process end-to-end. For this enterprise simulation platform to meet a dynamic business environment, it cannot be hard wired and rigid. Bridging the gaps requires flexibility and on-demand simulation services so the simulation process itself will be flexible, agile, and responsive; as well as being open to integrate existing and future simulation technologies. Existing simulation tools, external technology solutions, and proprietary in-house developments can all be integrated and exposed and part of a complete simulation platform. A scalable enterprise simulation platform provides a variety of value proposition opportunities. For example, simulation can be performed earlier in the process because it can be made available to a broader range of users within a mixed environment. By broadening simulation capabilities across the enterprise, results can be leveraged sooner resulting in significant time and cost savings. Therefore, an end result of a single simulation platform will be improved collaboration and orchestration among the various players in the simulation process. This includes: Experts – the ability for simulation experts to work in a multi- discipline environment where they have a rich work space for simulation task completion and process capture. Design Engineers – the ability for design engineers to access simulation capabilities up-front in the design process, connected to the simulation enterprise and re-using expert know how. Management – to orchestrate, manage, and track the simulation process and the use of simulation data in driving important business decisions. Supply Chain – the ability for suppliers to interact with their customers in real-time, with more timely ability to adapt to design changes and performance requirements; and perhaps more importantly, to be proactive as simulation results are tied into the extended enterprise process. Recent advances in the software industry have evolved best-practice software platforms from overly rigid, structured, monolithic frameworks towards flexible, loosely-coupled service oriented architectures (SOA). The Service Oriented Architecture Solution Service orientation takes applications and breaks them down into individual functions and processes, called services. A services-oriented architecture lets you model, assemble, deploy and integrate these services independent of applications and the computing platforms on which they run. Service orientation is about componentized services – enabling standards-based integration of this decoupled functionality. This is significant in order to create a flexible simulation environment that can respond to changing business needs. A team can develop systems based on components and quickly and flexibly link and expose these services to the enterprise – thus creating a flexible and integrated set of processes. With service orientation, information and applications are viewed as services or “building blocks.” Each of these services can be mixed and matched to create new, flexible business processes and business solutions. Service orientation is designed to provide the flexibility to treat elements of business processes and the underlying simulation infrastructure as components (or services) that can be reused and combined to address changing business priorities. The SOA approach enables an architectural style consisting of service providers, requestors and service descriptions enumerated through the familiar publish/find/bind service framework. SOA approaches enable and encourage design principles and patterns encompassing encapsulation, service composition, loose coupling, and reuse. The successful service-oriented simulation framework needs to be pervasive across all aspects of the integrated solution. Some current framework approaches support the ability to define or invoke integration components via wrappers, but an SOA approach is far more than just MSC.Software White Paper Enterprise Simulation Solution MSC SimEnterprise ™
Transcript of SimEnterprise Extending Simulation to the Enterprise
SimEnterpriseExtending Simulation to the Enterprise
Enterprise Simulation ChallengeThe companies that excel in a global economy will be those that can respond quickly to changing customer expectations, business opportunities, economic conditions, and technology advances. Historically, companies have used physical prototyping to verify that products meet the rigorous demands of the real world. This has been rapidly changing as companies transform themselves to respond with speed and flexibility to a changing global landscape. They are relying more and more on simulation in place of physical test for the product innovation process. As simulation moves to the forefront of the innovation cycle, simulation practices themselves must evolve from their current disconnected islands of product support activities toward enterprise integrated solutions.
The typical simulation process today involves highly skilled specialists building and solving simulation models across multiple specialized simulation tools. It is a long, serial process from beginning to end. One recent survey reported that a typical engineering organization uses more than 43 different simulation tools scattered across disparate expert analyst groups. Each tool solves a subset or a single domain of the overall simulation process with each specialist following his own practice based on individual knowledge and skills. Each tool also has a unique data model which requires that multiple data translations take place between each simulation step.
Consequently, data integrity and an audit-trail (or pedigree) is lost. There is no ability to re-use simulation data; no traceability to the process; a lack of consistency and repeatability; and real-world interactions across disciplines are lost. In the end, the simulation process happens much too slowly and is decoupled from the overall business processes of the organization.
The game-changing opportunity for product innovation advantage is to adopt an enterprise simulation platform that is integrated with the business-process end-to-end. For this enterprise simulation platform to meet a dynamic business environment, it cannot be hard wired and rigid. Bridging the gaps requires flexibility and on-demand simulation services so the simulation process itself will be flexible, agile, and responsive; as well as being open to integrate existing and future simulation technologies. Existing simulation tools, external technology solutions, and proprietary in-house developments can all be integrated and exposed and part of a complete simulation platform.
A scalable enterprise simulation platform provides a variety of value proposition opportunities. For example, simulation can be performed earlier in the process because it can be made available to a broader range of users within a mixed environment. By broadening simulation capabilities across the enterprise, results can be leveraged sooner resulting in significant time and cost savings. Therefore, an end result of a single simulation platform will be improved collaboration and orchestration among the various players in the simulation process. This includes:
Experts – the ability for simulation experts to work in a multi-discipline environment where they have a rich work space for simulation task completion and process capture.
Design Engineers – the ability for design engineers to access simulation capabilities up-front in the design process, connected to the simulation enterprise and re-using expert know how.
Management – to orchestrate, manage, and track the simulation process and the use of simulation data in driving important business decisions.
Supply Chain – the ability for suppliers to interact with their customers in real-time, with more timely ability to adapt to design changes and performance requirements; and perhaps more importantly, to be proactive as simulation results are tied into the extended enterprise process.
Recent advances in the software industry have evolved best-practice software platforms from overly rigid, structured, monolithic frameworks towards flexible, loosely-coupled service oriented architectures (SOA).
The Service Oriented Architecture SolutionService orientation takes applications and breaks them down into individual functions and processes, called services. A services-oriented architecture lets you model, assemble, deploy and integrate these services independent of applications and the computing platforms on which they run. Service orientation is about componentized services – enabling standards-based integration of this decoupled functionality. This is significant in order to create a flexible simulation environment that can respond to changing business needs. A team can develop systems based on components and quickly and flexibly link and expose these services to the enterprise – thus creating a flexible and integrated set of processes.
With service orientation, information and applications are viewed as services or “building blocks.” Each of these services can be mixed and matched to create new, flexible business processes and business solutions. Service orientation is designed to provide the flexibility to treat elements of business processes and the underlying simulation infrastructure as components (or services) that can be reused and combined to address changing business priorities.The SOA approach enables an architectural style consisting of service providers, requestors and service descriptions enumerated through the familiar publish/find/bind service framework. SOA approaches enable and encourage design principles and patterns encompassing encapsulation, service composition, loose coupling, and reuse.
The successful service-oriented simulation framework needs to be pervasive across all aspects of the integrated solution. Some current framework approaches support the ability to define or invoke integration components via wrappers, but an SOA approach is far more than just
MSC.SoftwareWhite Paper
Enterprise Simulation SolutionMSC SimEnterprise™
wrappers-based integration. The solution needs to support an ongoing evolution of interface definitions (both user-defined and industry-based) as they emerge from standards bodies such as OASIS and OAG. The underlying integration assets within the architecture must conform to:
• Service description and definition via a standard interface; for example, IDL, WSDL.
• Service invocation/interaction over a standards-based transport/mediation layer.
• Service choreography for orchestrating service interactions; for example, BPEL4WS.
• Service discovery through integrated registry/directory services; for example, ESM, UDDI.
The middleware that manages the transactions between the services is known as the service bus. The services themselves may be enabled from existing components or may be completely new functions.
Figure 1
An enterprise simulation SOA will consist of simulation services, or components, that are coupled through a simulation focused transport layer, or simulation bus, which matches the simulation consumers to the simulation services. The SimEnterprise platform is a service oriented architecture based on Open Multi-Discipline – Simulation Architecture (OMD-SA).
Open Multi-Discipline – Simulation ArchitectureThe OMD-SA is an extensible and flexible SOA that has been uniquely designed to meet the demands of high performance, multi discipline enterprise simulation. Some of the key requirements for an enterprise simulation SOA are:
High Performance Computing – The core of every simulation is high-performance computing for solving the large simulation math models. This requires services to be highly tuned for efficient execution of simulation tasks and to be written in software languages providing optimal math performance, such as C, C++, and FORTRAN. The use of shared memory, multi-threaded programming paradigms needs to be supported. Also, there will be substantial re-use of existing components so the SOA framework needs to be minimally invasive to existing software.
Multi Discipline Simulation – In multi-discipline simulation, higher level abstraction is used to efficiently define models and simulate across the multiple solution domains. The SOA framework needs to support these abstraction levels.
Efficient data transfer – The data for a simulation model and result set can become very large, sometimes approaching 2GB and higher. The message passing and data transfer performance needs to be
MSC.SoftwareWhite Paper
Enterprise Simulation SolutionSimEnterprise
MesherReporting
Engine PCL
Geometry 3rd Party Solver
CustomerExtension
Simulation Bus
optimized for these large data sets. Furthermore, the framework needs to avoid extra copies of data and unneeded communication.
Local and remote services – Services in a simulation implementation may sometimes be local, meaning in-process and in a single application space, and other times may be remote, meaning out-of-process and in a remote application space. Local services should cost no more than a function call, so the SOA framework has negligible overhead on the overall performance. Remote services should leverage standard and emerging network protocols to maximize performance. A single service should be able to be used both in a local and remote application.
Grid services – Web services is the typical architecture of choice for grid systems. The simulation platform needs to interact with web services and specifically the emerging web services standards for grid systems, such as Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA). Simulation services within the OMD-SA will interact both by invoking web services from the grid system and by providing discoverable services from a grid web service consumer.
Open Multi-Discipline – Simulation ArchitectureFigure 2 shows an overall view of OMD-SA and it’s configuration with the enterprise. There are 4 main sections of the architecture:
1) Component Framework – The component framework is an open SOA model where the services are available on-demand. The component framework is comprised of five layers. The services are connected through the Simulation Bus and a common data model that assures scalability and effective application of the services to a simulation application.
2) Simulation Clients – The services are exposed to the various players in the simulation process through different clients, both rich and thin, that address the specific user needs.
3) External Services – External services are available to OMD-SA through standard open plug-in technology. Legacy applications, 3rd party applications, as well as in-house developed applications can be exposed as services to OMD-SA applications.
4) Enterprise Service Bus – The Enterprise Service Bus can be either an existing ESB within an enterprise or a 3rd party ESB to which OMD-SA will interface. This allows for the use of external enterprise data and processes within a simulation process, i.e. using geometry from PDM within simulation. This also allows for the use of simulation services and processes within external enterprise applications.
Figure 2
PDM
3. External Services
1. Component Framework
2. Simulation Client
4. Enterprise Service Bus
ERP
In-House Apps
3rd Party Apps
MD Patran
Interface Services
KnowledgeServices
SimulationServices
MD Nastran
Simulation Bus
Enterprise Middleware
ProcessStudio
Process Mgmt Services
PedigreeManage
Meshing
Assembly
Crash
Motion
Structures
Thermal
Stress/Dynamics
HeatTransfer
AdvancedNonlinear
Safety
DB2 WebSphere Tivoli
The interface services provide the rich and thin user environments for simulation in a multi-discipline context. The simulation model is created, viewed, edited, and executed within a common user experience for motion, structures, thermal, and other simulation disciplines. The user interface environment is open and customizable for simulation-powered applications targeted to specific customer and user requirements.
The Simulation Common Data Model Service provides for efficient reuse of simulation data across multiple domains, users, and applications. It is the central service that all components use to complete required tasks by providing the required input data as well as providing a common repository for task output. The data therefore is no longer specific to a single domain, but common across all domains so multiple, slow timely, and error prone translations are no longer required.
The data model service also extends beyond the input and output data to the data associated with the definition of the process itself. Complete Simulation process and rules are captured in an abstract data representation that can be easily associated with multiple design instances. Process data representations assure that the process is executed consistently, no matter what model is used.
This is accomplished through:
• A single enterprise data model for all applications• Partitioning of data into reusable templates and specific
instances for use across multiple simulations• Publish/retrieve of data into enterprise repository
for reuse across multiple users• Partitioning of data into discipline-neutral and discipline-specific subtypes• Build-up of a single abstract model containing discipline-
neutral information for reuse across multiple disciplines
OMD-SA Compliance to StandardsOMD-SA was built to meet the demands of a high performance multi-discipline simulation environment, yet to extend efficiently to the enterprise through communication standards. OMD-SA was designed using today’s emerging open standards for interface definition and internet standard protocols. This includes:
• OMG-IDL (ISO standard 14750) and WDSL for service description and interface definition (same as also used for COM & CORBA)
• Service discovery through UDDI• Service invocation/interaction through SOAP
This makes it possible for OMD-SA to interact efficiently with a Web Services framework.
Standard extensions to the Simulation Bus also make it fast and efficient to extend to other frameworks. An example is .net. A .net adaptor interface is provided to the OMD-SA Simulation Bus. With this adaptor in place, the full lifecycle of discovery, transaction, and release of services between the two interfaces is managed. An example is enabling the use of .net C# scripting to drive any OMD-SA service.
The Component Framework is the hub of the OMD-SA platform. Each layer of the Component Framework is essential for realizing the full value. As such, each layer will be described along with its critical role to OMD-SA.
The underpinning of the SOA for SimEnterprise is the Simulation Bus. The Simulation Bus is a standards-based platform that manages the description, discovery, invocation, and interaction of components within the component framework. The simulation bus design specifically addresses needs of a multi-discipline simulation environment including:
• Efficient/high bandwidth/low overhead communication between services• Local and remote services• Communication with web services for Grid computing• High-performance computing including multi-threading
The multi discipline core of OMD-SA is the numerical solver engine – MD Nastran. MD Nastran solves the common simulation model across multiple simulation domains. The MD Nastran service in OMD-SA can be either used as a local service for fast simulation and efficient data transfer, or be used as a remote service on a High Performance Computing (HPC) server. MD Nastran components are also available as services to the OMD-SA framework. They include examples such as the input and output file readers and writers for the standard MD Nastran data files. Another example is the load managers and solution managers for MD Nastran that are exposed so that the solution process itself is accessible on-demand reducing the number of transactions needed for a simulation process.
The Simulation Services layer is the layer within which standard simulation components for building models, running simulations, and post processing sit. In a standard model-view-controller software design pattern, this model layer manages the information and actions for how the platform behaves. Many of these services were developed by extracting components from existing applications and repackaging the components as services to OMD-SA. Others have been designed and built specifically for the SimEnterpise platform.
The Knowledge Services enable simulation knowledge capture and enterprise simulation process management. This empowers experts to manage the simulation process across the enterprise. It also allows for the dynamic capture of pedigree information relative to a specific simulation instances. A full audit trail for any object or action will be captured and made available for traceability and subsequent data mining.
MSC.SoftwareWhite Paper
Enterprise Simulation SolutionSimEnterprise
Simulation Common Data Model Services
SimulationServices
Meshing
Assembly
Crash
Motion
Structures
Thermal
Simulation Bus
MD Nastran Stress/Dynamics
HeatTransfer
AdvancedNonlinear
Safety
KnowledgeServices
ProcessStudio
Process Mgmt Services
PedigreeManage
Interface Services
MSC.SoftwareWhite Paper
Enterprise Simulation SolutionSimEnterprise
OMD-SA Integration to EnterpriseThe enterprise objectives of the component framework are to provide simulation services on-demand to enterprise clients through a distributed, loosely coupled network of host applications. This means the clients need to find the required services without having to know the details about the deployed environment. The environment needs to meet the needs of security, scalability, reliability, and evolving technology and standards. There are three principle enterprise configurations for OMD-SA.
The first enterprise configuration for OMD-SA is native OMD-SA clients and hosts connecting across the enterprise. Enterprise middleware is part of the OMD-SA platform so that groups of users and remote simulation tasks function efficiently in a distributed environment. Some examples of this type of configuration:
• Client/server data access including data pedigree and data mining through OMD-SA thin clients
• Data publish/retrieve through OMD-SA rich clients• Standard simulation process execution in a distributed environment• Managed collaboration between multiple simulation players
The second enterprise configuration is OMD-SA clients discovering and invoking other non-OMD-SA enterprise services using an ESB. Examples include:
• PDM for geometry required as inputs to simulation tasks• Physical test data for model correlation• Job management on a Grid• Security and authorization
The final enterprise configuration is OMD-SA services being discovered and invoked by other non OMD-SA enterprise applications. Examples include:
• Execution of simulation workflows from within a larger PLM workflow or product verification workflow
• CAD Part modification that triggers a standard simulation
OMD-SA addresses simulation requirementsOMD-SA was designed from the ground-up to address the particular needs of simulation and thus is not compromised by conflicting technology requirements. The key simulation services are founded on proven technology from over 40 years of history in high-performance simulation. The OMD-SA platform is revolutionary and the most significant advancement for simulation in the past 20 years; in that it enables CAE players to work in an enterprise continuum that leverages built-in functionality for collaboration, data management, and process automation.
OMD-SA also enables:• A common solver foundation leveraging next
generation MD Nastran capabilities• Open, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA): a modern software
architecture allowing diverse applications and tools (including non-MSC) to be called as a “service” into SimEnterprise.
- Existing MSC applications (“legacy”, e.g. PCL) - In-house or custom applications - 3rd party applications (e.g. competitive
solvers such as Excel and Matlab)• OMD-SA is Enterprise Scalable connecting the key simulation players: - Designers - Analysts - Managers - Supply Chain
Realizing benefits of OMD-SAIn an OMD-SA architecture, information and processes that were once locked-in purpose-built applications have become a set of software services, broadly available for integration and flexible reuse. SOA promises dramatically improved alignment of Simulation with the needs of business through:
• Broad-scale application connectivity and interoperability• Easier alignment of simulation around the needs of the
business, representing applications and systems as a set of modular, reusable business components which can be flexibly joined together to form automated business processes
• Enhanced reuse of existing applications and data, minimizing custom software development
• Reduced integration costs• Reduced vendor lock-in and switching costs
Preservation and extension of existing operational systems is an essential element of OMD-SA. Service enablement and incorporation into a service-oriented architecture not only enables the seamless interchange of information among service-enabled applications and technologies, it accelerates business agility by allowing combination and re-assembly of their functions without knowledge of the low-level implementations. In this context, an enterprise service bus is a powerful tool to mitigate risk in system migration and consolidation.
OMD-SA is an open platform for both customers and partners to address extended or proprietary applications through the customizable services API’s, the SOA, and the programmable user interfaces. An ecosystem of technology providers based on the OMD-SA platform and consumers of simulation technology required across a multitude of industry requirements will provide a unique opportunity to advance simulation from a large number of niche technologies to an integrated business solution. Moreover, the platform will remain flexible and agile as simulation technology itself continues to advance and drive the innovation process.
The MSC.Software corporate logo, MSC, and the names of the MSC.Software products and services referenced herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of the MSC.Software Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. NASTRAN is a registered trademark of NASA. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners. © 2006 MSC.Software Corporation. All rights reserved.
CorporateMSC.Software Corporation2 MacArthur PlaceSanta Ana, California 92707Telephone 714 540 8900
www.mscsoftware.com
Europe, Middle East, AfricaMSC.Software GmbHAm Moosfeld 1381829 Munich, GermanyTelephone 49 89 431 98 70
Asia-PacificMSC.Software Japan LTD. Shinjuku First West 8F23-7 Nishi Shinjuku1-Chome, Shinjuku-KuTokyo, Japan 160-0023Telephone 81 3 6911 1200
