AGC Unleashes Potential with HPC in the Cloud

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
• Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Data Management Platforms

• Glass
• Chemicals
• Electronics

• Discrete Manufacturing
• Product Research & Development

• Predictive Maintenance
• Manufacturing System Automation

• Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
• Data Science Services
• System Integration

AGC, a global leader in glass, ceramic, chemicals, and electronics materials manufacturing, faced several challenges related to workflow and how users actively work with simulation tools and data. Sophisticated microstructure geometry designs needed to be modeled from the molecular-level up to the system level. These simulation models are very computationally-intensive and need to be performed continuously and across each step in the design and manufacturing process. Managing complex processes and workflows was further complicated by software updates. AGC uses a diverse suite of applications like LAMMPS, STAR-CCM+®, and COMSOL Multiphysics® to model different types of physics, and it was difficult to keep up with all of the software installation updates and maintenance. As a global enterprise with the highest security standards and requirements, AGC needed the solution to comply with the strictest IT policies, yet also simplify how users work with data and software tools and obtain resources. Other challenges included integrating security from the on-premise facilities to the cloud, minimizing data movement across the wide-area network (WAN) for hybrid cloud workflows, software licensing, accommodating complex, multi-step workflows, administration of policies, methodologies, software, and management tools, and future compatibility to enable breakthrough in areas such as machine learning and deep learning.

AGC, founded in 1907, is a global leader in the manufacturing of glass, ceramic, chemicals, and electronics materials. The company operates 210 companies globally and focuses on strategic industries such as mobility, electronics, and life sciences. AGC's mission and vision are forward-looking, aiming to overcome new challenges and continuously drive innovations that improve people's lives everywhere. The company turned to Rescale to extend its high-performance computing (HPC) resources to the cloud, transforming the way its researchers and engineers work with data, run simulations, use software, and fundamentally design innovation.

AGC collaborated with Rescale to deliver an end-to-end multi-cloud platform for enterprise big compute and HPC that integrates on-premise workflows and technologies and securely extends HPC to their cloud provider of choice. The solution simplifies, optimizes, and enables AGC to control and delegate access to cloud resources through a single, universal, self-administering interface, the Rescale platform. The Rescale solution includes end-to-end security, flexible enterprise licensing, visualization in the cloud, hybrid cloud workflow optimization, and maximum scalability and flexibility for HPC. Users can choose where to run their jobs, either on-premise or in the cloud. In cases where users run in the cloud, they are immediately able to obtain massive scalability to reduce time to results for simulation runs and improve accuracy and simulation quality.

• Engineers and researchers are now able to quickly and rapidly run simulations faster—reducing time to results with improved accuracy.
• AGC users process more data and adapt and refine models to adapt to new scenarios.
• Users now have the flexibility to simply get the job done with the right tool, whether that be on-premise or in the cloud.

• 3X performance speed-up compared to AGC’s in-house hardware
• STAR-CCM+ runs went from taking 40 hours on local workstations to 10 minutes with Rescale