simulation on demand

Simulation On DemandUsing GRID as a Platform to Develop Simulation-Based Training with a

Distributed Team

Joshua Lewis, PhD

Topics

• The training development lifecycle

• Simulation-based training solutions

• Constraints on our simulation and team

• Demo

• Why GRID?

• Our GRID deployment and configuration experience

• GRID benefits and lessons learned

Trained Operators

The default mentality

Resources Students

Learning

Temptations

• Training as an afterthought

• Assuming a narrow student demographic

• Assuming a single learning mode

• Assuming simulation engines are multi-purpose

• Using engineering assets

A better way

Virtual Simulation for Training

• A delivery option where a live person interacts with a synthetic environment

• Benefits

– Immersive

– Time-bound

– Risk free

– Measurable

Our Solution

Our Team

Other Constraints

• CW authored using the simulation engine

• Important to keep CW dev machine sim versions in sync

• Difficult to back out sim changes on CW dev machines

• Multiple fielded sim versions supported

Demo

• http://grid/speedtest/index-aspx.html

• http://grid/Citrix/StoreWeb/

Why GRID?

• Been looking for:

– Cloud-like solution for virtual simulation

– Stable solution from a big player

– Someone that cares about the enterprise

– Bridge for the PC-device gap

Configuration

• Supermicro 2U 2027GR-TRF

– Dual Xeon E5-2670 - 32 logical cores

– 3 NVIDIA K1 GPU - 12 pass-through

– 2.3 TB - 4x600 GB SSD

– Citrix XenServer 6.1 / XenDesktop 7

– Win 7 Enterprise VMs

Evaluation Process

• Stood up in C6 datacenter

• Configured / joined C6 domain

• Tested

– GPU pass-through

– Application function

– Dedicated VMs

– Pooled VMs

– Load testing

– Bandwidth testing

Current Deployment

• 8 pooled VMs for CW dev

• 4 dedicated VMs for special projects and BD

Challenges

• Virtualization platform knowledge

• Selling the concept internally

– PC era mentality

– “New” deployment paradigm

• Bandwidth / latency bottlenecks

• Compression tradeoffs

Benefits

• No local footprint, no massive installation

• Flexible delivery

• Immediate updates

• Enterprise virtualization

– Snapshots

– Baseline management

– Backup and recovery