Portable Containers for NSWC Structural Acoustics Modeling
The Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Carderock Division is constantly pursuing advanced technologies and tools to enhance structural acoustic analyses for naval platforms and frequently ports complex numerical modeling tools between DoD HPC systems, encountering new challenges with each transition that has made the process increasingly more difficult as new 
clusters come online. System-related issues, such as vendor-specific software/MPI stacks and networking, are compounded by the ongoing increase in the complexity and dependencies of the modeling tools themselves. This situation is particularly problematic with porting the configurations to restricted systems, where the build configuration is first developed on surrogate 
unclassified systems and may require iterating between the separate systems, thereby introducing an additional layer of complexity. NSWC is, therefore, looking to container technology to package complex software tools and remove system dependencies that often stall the porting process and require undue amounts of personnel and computing resources to resolve. In this talk, we will 
discuss work performed by PET to build and verify a single-contain solution for AEROS, a massively-parallel structural acoustics solver developed by Stanford University, that can be readily ported between multiple unclassified HPC systems across the HPCMP and ported directly to restricted HPC systems without the need for surrogate unclassified systems. Although this work was focused on the AEROS solver, its impact spans a broad range of models and applications and lessons learned can be applied to a more extensive modeling systems in the NSWC modeling toolset, thereby increasing NSWC’s efficiency and effectiveness in supporting U.S. Navy fleet
applications.
IMPACT
Accomplishment: Successfully developed and verified a single containerized environment supporting the AEROS structural acoustics solver and its dependency libraries; Result: Developed a portable AEROS installation that can be readily ported between multiple unclassified and restricted DoD HPC systems, increasing NSWC’s efficiency and effectiveness in supporting U.S.  Navy structural-acoustic applications.
PRESENTER
Whittaker, Stefanie
stefanie.whittaker@gdit.com
318-833-4293
PET/GDIT
CO-AUTHOR(S)
Wu, Kuangcheng
kuangcheng.wu.civ@us.navy.mil
Klein, Harley
harley.klein@gdit.com
CATEGORY
Containers
SYSTEM(S) USED
Warhawk, Narwhal, Nautilus, Classified