Mixed-Mode DRM and the SIMULIA Execution Engine

Depending on the type of work items you submit to the SIMULIA Execution Engine, it may be desirable to configure a single SIMULIA Execution Engine server to use a combination of the Fiper and LSF distributed resource management (DRM) options.

The LSF DRM option imposes significant overhead because of the sophisticated scheduling procedures. For resource-intensive, long-running work items, this improved scheduling is highly desirable to optimize the use of available computing resources. However, for short-running work items, this overhead may lead to reduced throughput for models with short-running components. To overcome this issue, an administrator can configure the SIMULIA Execution Engine to enable both the Fiper and LSF DRM options, a scenario known as Mixed-Mode DRM.

Mixed-Mode DRM is enabled in the acs.properties file. If both the fiper.system.drm and fiper.system.drm.2 settings are defined in the acs.properties file, both DRM options are enabled. The DRM option listed first is considered the default type, which generally means this DRM option is used if the Isight model developer does not specify a different DRM type at the component level.

For example, the following settings enable both DRM types, with the Fiper DRM option being the default choice:

fiper.system.drm=fiper
fiper.system.drm.2=lsf

When Mixed-Mode DRM is enabled, the SIMULIA Execution Engine administrator can configure a maximum run time for work items that will be dispatched using the Fiper DRM option. This configuration is used to prevent model developers from overwhelming available Fiper DRM stations with long-running or resource-intensive executions. Normally, the stations using the Fiper DRM option are used for executing short-running work items. If the administrator sets the fiper.system.drm.fipertimelimit setting in the acs.properties file, any work item with a maximum run time greater than this specified limit is dispatched with the LSF DRM option even if DRM specified by the component is Fiper DRM or Any. For additional information on fiper.system.drm.fipertimelimit, see Understanding the acs.properties File Settings

For additional information on the use of Mixed-Mode DRM and setting the DRM mode for Isight components, see Configuring the LSF DRM Settings in the Isight Component Guide.