[jfournier]

Hello everyone,

I'm thinking of trying out OpenFoam for my CFD needs. However, there are a few questions I would like to ask of the comunity.

First and foremost, is it possible to install Openfoam on a Windows-run cluster (the OS is Windows 2008 R2 SP1)?

Secondly, if it is possible, can I have a local OpenFoam launch a job on the cluster (for those of you that have used it, I'm thinking something along the lines of Ansys RSM).

I've found at least two ways on installing OF on Windows:
- The link found on the main openfoam website
- The CFD support version

Which of these two would you recommand? And why?

Thank you for any help you might provide

[wyldckat]

Greetings jfournier,

The quick answer is: all versions that work on Windows, should be able to run on a windows cluster. Problem is that each implementation has its own difficulties in implementing it.

The builds provided by ESI-OpenCFD for OpenFOAM+ through Docker images, will run inside a virtual machine (VM), via Virtualbox. This means that you would need:

1. To install this in all of the machines that will be used to run the cases.
2. Either Virtualbox or the VM (or both, I'm not really certain), would need to to be configured to be accessible from the outside network of each real machine, through a virtual network.
3. After you had the virtual network and respective VMs up-and-running, you can then finally launch the runs in parallel on all machines of the cluster.

As for the ((unofficial) native builds of OpenFOAM for Windows provided by the company named "CFD support", should also be able to run in parallel with multiple machines, although I'm not 100% certain of this. You will need to install the software on all of the machines. It should also install MS-MPI on each Windows machine, which should then be able to run in parallel with all of those machines. It's just a matter of you contacting them directly and ask for more details about this.


And disclaimer for the following paragraph, I'm handling the development and support for the following project: blueCFD-Core also provides (unofficially) native builds of OpenFOAM for Windows and it's currently being developed by blueCAPE (where I work).

• The latest release, named "blueCFD-Core 2016-1" was done recently and already provides OpenFOAM 4.x for Windows. More details provided on the project's website: http://bluecfd.github.io/Core/

• It uses MS-MPI 7.1, which also supports running in parallel with multiple machines. I haven't managed yet to find the time to document this yet, but the release notes for MS-MPI provide some details on how to do so: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...(v=vs.85).aspx
  • This is why I stated that the builds by CFD support should also be able to do the same.

Best regards,
Bruno