HPC/Applications/lumerical

Introduction

Lumerical has two main components:

• fdtd-solutions (also known as CAD): The GUI. We have licensed 4 concurrent seats. Access is for Argonne staff only. To request access, submit a support request.
• fdtd-engine (also known as FDTD): The compute engine, called either by the GUI or in a PBS job file. We have 17 concurrent seats. Access is granted to all CNM users.

Manual and Knowledge Base

https://kb.lumerical.com/

Running the fdtd-solutions GUI (CAD)

Using the fdtd-solutions GUI application requires access to a Lumerical license service that runs on Carbon. There are three ways to run the appliation with the proper license access:

1. Run on Carbon and display on your machine over X11 forwarding
2. Run on Carbon in a VNC virtual desktop and display that desktop on your machine.
3. Run on your desktop directly and use license port forwarding.

X11

Run "fdtd-solutions" as an X11 application on a Carbon login node

fdtd-solutions &

• Requires an X11 server application on your desktop machine.
• Requires X11 forwarding under SSH.
• Disadvantage: May run sluggish.

VNC

Run "fdtd-solutions" on Carbon in a VNC virtual desktop.

• Requires a VNC client on your side.
• Advantage: uses compression and hence can be faster than X11.
• Disadvantage: Limited desktop environment.

Native

Run the "FDTD Solutions" application on your desktop, and configure it to obtain the Lumerical license from Carbon.

• Advantage: Native graphics speed.
• Caveat: When running outside of CNM (which is possible), you will need an active network connection to NST.

To get started:

• [a request to CNM IT Support] and ask to have the FDTD-Solutions software installed on your desktop or laptop.
• Configure license access as shown below.

Running compute jobs within fdtd-engine (FDTD)

To run a presumably parallel job, construct your model and task within the fdtd-solutions application and save it as an .fsp file. Then copy and customize the following job template, entering your account and file names:

$LUMERICAL_HOME/sample.job

Note: fdtd-engine does not support checkpointing. Select your #PBS -l walltime parameter generously.

Memory issues

Problem

When running an fdtd-engine compute job in parallel, during the final stage (Data Collection) the memory use of the MPI master process could dramatically increase. For example, during the calculation ("cruising") stage each MPI process may be happy with using 2-4 GB, but in the collection stage, the master process (MPI rank 0) may require 10 times as much and more. The other MPI processes evidently remain idle but running during the collection stage, and continue to hold on to their memory, which could amount to a valuable 10–15 GB, say. The increased memory demand may cause the node to go into swap, even for Carbon's "bigmem" nodes which have 48 GB RAM each. Swap use will be detected and at first tolerated by TORQUE (PBS), but after a few minutes TORQUE will kill the job. In that case, the following error will appear in the standard error stream:

=>> PBS: job killed: swap rate due to memory oversubscription is too high
mpirun: abort is already in progress...hit ctrl-c again to forcibly terminate

mpirun: killing job...

The standard output stream may reach 99% or 100%, then stop:

0% complete. Max time remaining: 16 mins, 4 secs. Auto Shutoff: 1
1% complete. Max time remaining: 15 mins, 4 secs. Auto Shutoff: 1
…
98% complete. Max time remaining: 20 secs. Auto Shutoff: 6.21184e-05
99% complete. Max time remaining: 9 secs. Auto Shutoff: 5.5162e-05
100% complete. Max time remaining: 0 secs. Auto Shutoff: 4.51006e-05

For success, there should rather be several more lines with collection notes and of course "Simulation completed successfully".

Workarounds

• Try to collect less data.

Chris K. from Lumerical Support wrote:
For example, all field monitors allow you to choose which E/H/P fields to collect. If you only care about power transmission through a monitor, you can disable all the E/H/P fields and just collect the 'net power'. You can also control the number of frequency points, and you can enable spatial downsampling, and obviously just make the monitors smaller.

• Have the master process run on a node of its own, as shown at HPC/Submitting and Managing Jobs/Advanced node selection#Different PPN by node. You will trade away compute capacity for memory. Caveat: Try to keep the total number of cores highly divisible. Example:
  • A typical request for 64 cores:

#PBS -l nodes=8:ppn=8

• • Improved request:

#PBS -l nodes=1:ppn=1:bigmem+1:ppn=7+7:ppn=8
#PBS -l naccesspolicy=SINGLEJOB -n

Note that the + sign is a field delimiter in the "nodes" specification. This specification requests the same number of cores total, but split up the load of the original first node over two nodes, one with a single core, and the second with the remaining 7 cores, followed by as many 8-core nodes as needed.

nodes = ( 1:ppn=1 ) + ( 1:ppn=7 ) + ( 7:ppn=8 ) = 1 + 7 + 7 * 8 = 64 cores.

Rank 0 will have the entire RAM on the first node available, and is the only rank to likely need "bigmem". The other ranks are modest in memory needs and unlikely to face contention. Usually, Moab will ensure that all ranks run on the same node generation, in this case gen2 (see HPC/Submitting and Managing Jobs/Advanced node selection#Hardware).

Running Optimization Jobs

• Prepare your optimization project as needed, save it as *.fsp file, and if needed copy it onto Carbon.
• Open fdtd-solutions on Carbon.

Resource Configuration

• Click Configure resources under the Simulation menu entry.
• Remove all but the "localhost" entry.

  

• Push Add.
• Double-click the Name column of the new resource entry, enter "Carbon", and press enter.

  

• Push Edit.
• Enter the advanced options as shown:

  

	Job launching:				Custom

	mpiexec engine:				/opt/apps/lumerical/8.16.931-1/bin/mpiexec-as-job
						(Copy the directory components from the "FDTF engine" setting below).

	Extra mpiexec command line options:	-l nodes=1:ppn=8 -l walltime=2:00:00 --
	Suppress any default mpiexec options:	yes
	Bypass mpi on localhost:		no

	FDTD engine:				(leave default)
	Extra FDTD … options:			(leave empty)
	Create log for all processes:		no

• Push OK. The window will close.

Testing the Configuration

• In the toplevel Resource Configuration window you may want to push "Run tests". This may work and you get "MPICH tests completed successfully". Likely, this will turn into "Timeout" shortly afterwards.

  

  

• Duplicate the "Carbon" resource about 5-8 times.
• Push Save.

You are ready to run the optimization.

Running the optimization

• You'll get windows like the following. There will be several volleys, each producing a "swarm" point in the figure-of-merit trend plot.

  

Hints

• You may go back and edit the Advanced options of a resource, but you must remove all other previously cloned entries, and re-clone the newly edited resource.
• When you choose to provide qsub options under "Extra mpiexec command line options", such as to allow for a walltime longer than the default 1 hour, ensure to append "--".

Remote license access

To use #Native access, your desktop copy of Lumerical must be configured to connect to Carbon's license server. The steps required depend on the network location of your computer, as follows:

When inside CNM or using VPN

Note: This section does not apply for running fdtd-solutions or fdtd-engine on Carbon itself.

On your desktop or laptop, do the following:

1. Verify that you are inside CNM's network. Your browser must be able to reach the link http://carbonmgmt/ .
2. Start the Lumerical application
3. In Lumerical, locate the Configure License menu item.
   • Choose license type: FlexNet Licensing
   • Activate: Configure redundant servers.
4. Set Servers to cmgmt3, cmgmt4, and csched1.
5. Choose the About Lumerical menu item.

   Compare the (lengthy) License Server string to the entry shown below.

When outside CNM

1. Close any connection to Carbon's login nodes, and Mega.
2. Revisit the port forwarding configuration for your your SSH client (one-time only).

• Mac and Linux users: Add to ~/.ssh/config, in the section for mega:

Host mega
	…
	# Lumerical
	LocalForward 27011 carbonmgmt:27011
	LocalForward 27014 carbonmgmt:27014

• Windows users: See HPC/Network Access/PuTTY Configuration/Accessing Carbon licenses remotely

3. Re-open the connection to Mega.
4. Install or upgrade the Lumerical application
5. Open Lumerical as usual. When asked for the license information, enter the host IP address as follows:

   

   Note: Do not use "localhost" - this is ambiguous when IPv6 is in play.

6. Start Lumerical.: To inspect the license setting, choose About Lumerical from the application menu.

The license setting is stored on Mac and Linux platforms in ~/.config/Lumerical/FDTD\ Solutions.ini and should read:

…
[license]
type=flex
flexserver\host=[email protected]

Legacy mechanism - Retired July 2013

This was the license mechanism [1] in use before version 8.6. No license tokens for this mechanism remain active.