Industrial Applications of High-Performance Computing

243

Chapter 17

Porsche: An

Industrial Use Case

Michael M. Resch and Andreas Wierse

17.1 THE ROLE OF HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING

FOR THE GERMAN AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY

e German automotive industry is operating in a special environment.

Salaries in Germany are relatively high compared to international com-

petitors and especially compared to emerging economies. Very early it was

clear that international competition would put the manufacturing of cars

in Germany at the risk of being outcompeted by low-wage countries. In

this situation, the path chosen was one of clear focus on high technology

and high quality. Simulation was a cornerstone of this strategy right from

the beginning. Starting with the Cray systems that were installed in the

1980s, German car manufacturers started to grow their high- performance

capacities. Today, HPC is an integral part of their IT strategy with a trend

toward extending the reach of simulation, both horizontally and verti-

cally. Originally utilized for crash simulations, HPC plays a major role in

all stages of the development today. Furthermore, HPC has branched out

from development departments into production planning and, in some

places, even production control.

CONTENTS

17.1 e Role of High-Performance Computing for the German

Automotive Industry 243

17.2 Porsche as a Special Case 244

17.3 Sustainable HPC Provisioning through a Public–Private

Partnership 244

17.4 Summary 246

244 ◾ Industrial Applications of High-Performance Computing

17.2 PORSCHE AS A SPECIAL CASE

For Porsche—as the smallest of all German car manufacturers— high-

performance computing (HPC) was especially important but also a huge

investment. Given the need to maintain a steady pace of development and

the relatively small number of units sold, simulation was very early on

considered to be a chance to survive in an increasingly competitive mar-

ket. So, for Porsche, simulation was one of the cornerstones in overcoming

the disadvantage of being a small and independent vendor.

As Porsche traditionally already had a very good relationship with the

University of Stuttgart, Porsche started to collaborate with the comput-

ing center of the university in the second half of the 1980s. Many of the

key engineers at Porsche were alumni of the University of Stuttgart and

the Porsche development center was close to Stuttgart. Common develop-

ment in engineering between Porsche and several institutes of the univer-

sity had a long tradition. Proximity and the trust that had been built over

decades of collaboration provided an excellent breeding ground.

First, the main focus was on crash simulation and common projects.

e ever-growing need for computing power soon led to the rst coopera-

tion. e University of Stuttgart was hosting Porsche systems as early as

1993. ey were still owned by Porsche but were integrated into the opera-

tional environment of the computing center. As much as this was an early

success, it soon turned out that a more stable model for cooperation had

to be found, as with every new acquisition of a system new arrangements

had to be found to guarantee industrial access.

17.3 SUSTAINABLE HPC PROVISIONING THROUGH

A PUBLIC–PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP

With the foundation of Hww* in 1995 as described in Chapter 5, a plat-

form was provided to continuously make research systems available to

industry. At the same time the High-Performance Computing Center

Stuttgart (HLRS) was founded, which served as the entry point of Porsche

into academic HPC. rough HLRS and Hww, Porsche had access to

world-class resources with a focus still mainly on crash simulations. Issues

of networking and security had to be resolved but solutions were found

based on mutual understanding and exploiting improved network and

security technologies as much as possible.

*

Hww stands for Höchstleistungsrechner für Wissenscha und Wirtscha GmbH, which is the

interface between HLRS and industry.