Altair > Case Studies > Workflow Management for R&D at The Boeing Company with PBS Professional

Workflow Management for R&D at The Boeing Company with PBS Professional

Technology Category

Functional Applications - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP)
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing

Applicable Industries

Aerospace
Semiconductors

Applicable Functions

Product Research & Development

Use Cases

Inventory Management
Smart Campus

Services

System Integration

About The Customer

The Boeing Information Technology group is based in Bellevue, Washington and provides a wide range of computing services to the entire corporation. The heartbeat of this campus is the Data Center, which houses the high-performance computing (HPC) systems that are accessed by all Boeing engineering departments to run engineering simulations and analyses. The HPC systems are primarily used for engineering studies and alterations to existing designs, such as stretched fuselages and additional seats. They are currently being used intensively for early new product development on the Boeing 787. The servers are accessed by Boeing engineers in Philadelphia and other sites around the world.

The Challenge

The Boeing Information Technology group, based in Bellevue, Washington, provides a wide range of computing services to the entire corporation. The Data Center, which houses the high-performance computing (HPC) systems, is the core of this campus. These HPC systems are accessed by all Boeing engineering departments, with the highest demand coming from engineers running aerodynamics and structural models, especially during the early stages of aircraft design. The HPC resources are primarily used for engineering studies and alterations to existing designs. The challenge was to find a reliable workload manager that could handle Boeing's distinct clusters and optimize several resources under one queue.

The Solution

Boeing implemented Altair's PBS Professional for workload management on three HPC systems: a 64 MSP Cray X1, a 384-CPU SGI Origin 3800 server, and five clusters purchased from Linux Networx. The PBS Professional’s Peer Scheduling feature enables Boeing to balance workload evenly across the clusters. This peer-to-peer scheduling allows PBS Professional to optimize several resources under one queue where users submit jobs. Additionally, Boeing reported dramatic performance benefits with PBS Professional’s support of CPU Sets on their SGI Origin. With PBS Professional running on both the SGI and Cray platforms, it was a logical step for Boeing to implement it on their Linux Networx clusters.

Operational Impact

The implementation of Altair's PBS Professional for workload management has proven to be a stable and reliable solution for Boeing. It has lived up to its specifications and has been instrumental in managing the workload across different clusters. The system has allowed Boeing to place work onto the machine and manage it effectively. If the software malfunctions, the cost to the company would be high. Therefore, the reliability of PBS Professional is extremely important to Boeing. The company relies on its batch scheduling system for adopting and managing queuing policies, which is what PBS Professional provides. As Boeing adds more clusters, they will continue to use more PBS Professional.

Quantitative Benefit