Cluster Installation

COMSOL supports two modes of parallel operation: shared-memory parallel operations and distributed-memory parallel operations, including cluster support. This section is dedicated to distributed-memory parallel installation.

COMSOL can distribute computations on compute clusters using the MPI model. One large simulation can be distributed across many compute nodes. Also, parametric sweeps can be done with individual parameter cases distributed to each cluster node.

system requirements

The installation instructions above can also be followed for clusters. COMSOL supports shared-memory parallelism and distributed-memory parallelism on 64-bit Linux. For details on system requirements, see www.comsol.com/system-requirements.

license manager

COMSOL requires a Floating Network License for running on clusters. Please check the license file for the CLUSTERNODE feature, which needs to be present to enable the cluster computing functionality. The license manager needs to be accessible from all nodes in the cluster. Therefore it is often a good idea to have it run on the head node.

installation folder

The COMSOL installation folder should be shared between all compute nodes and the head node.

features

During installation, make sure the Cluster Components feature is selected.

access to cluster

If you work on a computer that is not on the cluster, install COMSOL on that computer. Typically, you use a scheduler to launch jobs on the cluster. Make sure the scheduler client software is installed on that computer. You can configure the installation to use the scheduler by changing the comsol.ini file according to the section on MPI Options in the COMSOL Multiphysics Reference Manual.

For more information on installing and running COMSOL on clusters, see Running COMSOL on Clusters and the COMSOL Multiphysics Reference Manual.