Caution
This article references CentOS, a Linux distribution that is nearing End Of Life (EOL) status. Please consider your use and plan accordingly. For more information, see the CentOS End Of Life guidance.
This article briefly describes the steps for running OpenFOAM on a virtual machine (VM) that's deployed on Azure. It also presents the performance results of running OpenFOAM on Azure.
OpenFOAM is a free, open-source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) application. Users have permission to modify and compile the package based on the needs and the physics of the problem they're solving.
The software is a C++ toolbox for the development of customized numerical solvers. It uses explicit methods for configuring a simulation by selecting numerical schemes, solvers and their parameters, and algorithm controls.
OpenFOAM is used in academia/education and in industries like transportation, automotive, manufacturing, and healthcare.
Why deploy OpenFOAM on Azure?
- Modern and diverse compute options to align to your workload's needs
- The flexibility of virtualization without the need to buy and maintain physical hardware
- Rapid provisioning
- Appreciable speed increase as cores increase
Architecture
Download a Visio file of this architecture.
Components
- Azure Virtual Machines is used to create a Linux VM. For information about deploying the VM and installing the drivers, see Linux VMs on Azure.
- Azure Virtual Network is
used to create a private network infrastructure in the cloud.
- Network security groups are used to restrict access to the VM.
- A public IP address connects the internet to the VM.
- A physical solid-state drive (SSD) is used for storage.
Compute sizing and drivers
Performance tests of OpenFOAM on Azure used HBv3-series VMs running Linux. The following table provides details about the VMs.
| VM size | vCPU | Memory (GiB) | Memory bandwidth GBps | Base CPU frequency (GHz) | All-cores frequency (GHz, peak) | Single-core frequency (GHz, peak) | RDMA performance (Gbps) | Temp storage (GiB) | Maximum data disks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard_HB120rs_v3 | 120 | 448 | 350 | 1.9 | 3.0 | 3.5 | 200 | 2 * 960 | 32 |
| Standard_HB120-96rs_v3 | 96 | 448 | 350 | 1.9 | 3.0 | 3.5 | 200 | 2 * 960 | 32 |
| Standard_HB120-64rs_v3 | 64 | 448 | 350 | 1.9 | 3.0 | 3.5 | 200 | 2 * 960 | 32 |
| Standard_HB120-32rs_v3 | 32 | 448 | 350 | 1.9 | 3.0 | 3.5 | 200 | 2 * 960 | 32 |
| Standard_HB120-16rs_v3 | 16 | 448 | 350 | 1.9 | 3.0 | 3.5 | 200 | 2 * 960 | 32 |
The HBv3 (Milan-X) VMs are optimized for HPC applications like fluid dynamics, explicit and implicit finite element analysis, weather modeling, seismic processing, reservoir simulation, and RTL simulation.
Required drivers
To use AMD CPUs on HBv3 VMs, you need to install AMD drivers.
To use InfiniBand, you need to enable InfiniBand drivers.
OpenFOAM installation
Before you install OpenFOAM, you need to deploy and connect a Linux VM and install the required AMD and InfiniBand drivers.
For information about deploying the VM and installing the drivers, see Run a Linux VM on Azure.
For information about installation and about the various versions of OpenFOAM, see this OpenFOAM Development page.
OpenFOAM performance results
The following table provides the details of the operating system that was used for testing.
| Operating system | OS architecture | Processor |
|---|---|---|
| CentOS 7.9.2009 | x86-64 | AMD EPYC 7V73X (Milan-X) |
The motorbike model with 21M cells was used for testing.
The following table shows the elapsed times, in seconds, for running the simulation with varying numbers of CPUs.
| Number of CPUs | Elapsed times (seconds) | Relative speed increase |
|---|---|---|
| 16 | 412.08 | 1.00 |
| 32 | 253.04 | 1.63 |
| 64 | 176.43 | 2.34 |
| 96 | 159.62 | 2.58 |
| 120 | 157.88 | 2.61 |
This graph shows the relative speed increases as the number of CPUs increases:
Azure cost
The following table presents wall-clock times that you can use to calculate Azure costs. You can multiply the times presented here by the Azure hourly rates for HBv3-series VMs to calculate costs. For the current hourly costs, see Linux Virtual Machines Pricing.
Only model running time (wall-clock time) is considered in these cost calculations. Application installation time isn't considered. The calculations are indicative. The actual costs depend on the size of the model.
You can use the Azure pricing calculator to estimate the costs for your configuration.
| Number of CPU cores | Wall-clock time (hours) |
|---|---|
| 16 | 0.114 |
| 32 | 0.070 |
| 64 | 0.049 |
| 96 | 0.044 |
| 120 | 0.044 |
Summary
- OpenFOAM was successfully tested on HBv3-series VMs on Azure.
- An appreciable speed increase is achieved as CPU cores are increased up to 64 cores. After that point, the speed increase starts to saturate.
Contributors
This article is maintained by Microsoft. It was originally written by the following contributors.
Principal authors:
- Hari Bagudu | Senior Manager
- Gauhar Junnarkar | Principal Program Manager
- Vinod Pamulapati | HPC Performance Engineer
Other contributors:
- Mick Alberts | Technical Writer
- Guy Bursell | Director Business Strategy
- Sachin Rastogi | Manager
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Next steps
- GPU-optimized virtual machine sizes
- Virtual machines on Azure
- Virtual networks and virtual machines on Azure
- Learning path: Run high-performance computing (HPC) applications on Azure