Axceleon Announces New Release of CloudFuzion Software

Axceleon today announced a new release of CloudFuzion software. This version of CloudFuzion delivers several major security and productivity enhancements, including:

  • A new cluster architecture with a two-tier public and private networks to strengthen the protection of backend servers
  • CloudFormation template to ease the task of cluster deployments and updates
  • A new searchable interface for the users to access large result data sets

CloudFuzion is available by subscription.  Contact Axceleon for more information.

 

 

Axceleon Further Strengthens Cluster Security with Active Directory Integration for EnFuzion

Axceleon announces an upcoming version of EnFuzion which is integrated with Active Directory to further strength cluster security and ease the task of managing a computer cluster.

 
Active Directory has become the industry standard for managing users, computers and security policies. EnFuzion 18.0 from Axceleon makes it possible to use Active Directory to manage the access to EnFuzion based computer clusters. In addition to the EnFuzion built-in security features, the integration with Active Directory further strengthens cluster security with the industry standard role-based access control. Having a common method to manage EnFuzion users and clustered computers in the same way as managing other domain users and computers will also greatly ease the task of administering an EnFuzion cluster.
 
This feature will be introduced in an early access program. Please contact Axceleon to join the early access program.
 

Axceleon Announces Update to EnFuzionSP Software

Axceleon announces the immediate availability of a software update to the EnFuzionSP 16.0 product.

 
The new version of the EnFuzionSP software provides many new features and productivity enhancements. The highlights are:
 
– Support for Python 3.x in addition Python 2.7
– Numerous enhancements to the PSS/E and PLSF plugins
– Support for PSS/E versions 34, 33 and 32
– Continued support for the PowerGEM TARA “Run with EnFuzion” option
– Support for PSLF SSTOOLS and DYTOOLS 21.0.07
– Support for remedial action schemes within PSLF DYTOOLS simulations
 
For a complete list of new features and enhancements in this release, please contact Axceleon.

Axceleon Joins New IEEE PES Task Force on Cloud Computing for Power Grid

Axceleon Inc. is excited to announce that we have joined the newly formed IEEE PES Task Force on Cloud Computing for Power Grid.

 
Axceleon provides CloudFuzion, a fully automated on-demand utility cloud computing platform based on AWS. CloudFuzion has been deployed in production by the ISO-NE on AWS for many years, delivering orders of magnitude of cost saving and productivity boost to their users. A variant of the CloudFuzion software can also run on Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
 
See https://sites.google.com/view/cloud4powergrid/team?authuser=0 for more information on the task force.
 

Axceleon Creates EnFuzionSP Plugin for PSLF to Study Critical Clearing Time

Axceleon announces the immediate availability of a plugin for pinpointing the precise critical clearing times in transient stability studies of power systems.

 

In response to the new NERC TPL-001-5 and TPL-004 requirements for the power systems planners to study delayed fault clearing and stuck breaker contingencies, Axceleon created a new plugin to help the users pinpoint the precise critical clearing time value.

 

Traditionally, planning studies rely on a 4-cycle estimate to demonstrate system stability. Using this approach, issues caused by unforeseen protection device failures, communication failures or stuck breakers could erode an otherwise adequate margin and cause undetected problems. These problems can be effectively eliminated by knowing the precise clearing time values of a system under all the possible contingencies. The new EnFuzion plugin makes doing this type of large scale parametric study easy.

 

This plugin is immediately available for PSLF users.

 

For more information and to receive the plugin, please contact Axceleon.

 

Axceleon Adds New Training Class on Managing Cluster Security

Axceleon introduces a new training class on how to set up an EnFuzion computer cluster with a specific focus on managing cluster security.

 

The classes will discuss topics including the following:

 

  • How to manage machines, users and access rights?
  • How to configure the firewall and anti-virus software to keep your cluster safe?
  • How to share users machines safely as compute nodes?
  • How to implement a security lockdown for your computer cluster?
  • How to implement user authentication for your computer cluster?

The new training class is offered once a month, starting in July 2019.  This class can be customized and delivered in a private forum as well.

Sign up for the new class here.

CloudFuzion Featured in 2019 IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid

CloudFuzion has been featured in a recent issue of the IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, providing a practical blue print on how to use cloud computing to extend computational resources for doing power system analysis.

 

In the March 2019 issue of the IEEE Transaction of Smart Grid, the article titled Practical Design and Implementation of Cloud Computing for Power System Planning Studies by Xiaochuan Luo, Song Zhang and Eugene Litvinov of ISO New England describes how ISO New England used CloudFuzion to implement an elastic on-demand Amazon cloud based cloud computing platform to achieve an unprecedented level of productivity gain and cost saving.

Axceleon Announces Pilot Program for CloudFuzion

To facilitate the evaluation and adoption of the CloudFuzion, Axceleon announces a pilot program for the software.

 

Cloud computing offers an unprecedented level of cost and productivity advantages in comparison to other methods, such as setting up on-premises servers clusters for high-performance computing.  However, to new users, adopting this technology requires much planning and careful implementation.  It is also true that the advantages of cloud computing must be experienced first-hand to be fully appreciated, and this is often the pre-requisite to adopting this technology.

 

To help potential users of cloud computing to get a first-hand experience of doing high-performance distributed parallel computing on Amazon AWS cloud, Axceleon announces a 6-month pilot program for CloudFuzion. The pilot program offers the users a chance to set up and see an AWS-based cluster in action, managed by CloudFuzion.

 

As a part of the pilot program, you will work closely with Axceleon engineers to do the following:

 

  • Setting up a secure cluster and secure storage on AWS
  • Secure data communication between your premises and AWS, and setting up access control for the authorized users
  • Deploying your application on the cloud-based computers
  • Parallelizing your computational workloads
  • Submitting your workloads through CloudFuzion to run on the cloud
  • Monitoring execution progress and retrieving results

For more information on the pilot program, please contact support@axceleon.com.

PowerGEM TARA Now Provides Seamless Integration with EnFuzion

EnFuzion has been integrated into the PowerGEM TARA Viewer to make it plug-and-plug for those who wish to use EnFuzion to speed up large contingency analysis on many networked computers, or a dedicated server cluster.

 

EnFuzion has been long been used in tandem with TARA to speed up large N-1 and N-1-1 contingency analysis, but the users have had to integrate the two by themselves.  In the most recent release of the TARA software, the support for EnFuzion has been integrated as an additional module, which is available directly from PowerGEM.  This integration makes using EnFuzion plug-and-play.  Once a study has been defined using the TARA Viewer Excel interface, the user can simply choose the “Run with EnFuzion” option from the menu to distribute the computation to run on many networked computers, or a dedicated server cluster.

 

Please contact PowerGEM directly to access the EnFuzion support module.

EnFuzionSP Adds Support for PSLF 21_06, Improves CPU Utilization and Performance

The PSLF SSTOOLS plug-in for EnFuzionSP version 16.0.x has been updated to support a performance enhancement provided by GE  in PSFL version 21_06.  This update is provided as a simple patch to current users of EnFuzionSP.

 

Prior to PSLF version 21_06, when many instances of PSLF are run in parallel by EnFuzionSP, very high CPU load was often observed on the compute node machines, along with very high numbers of CPU thread count.  PSLF version 21_06 from GE provides a fix for this by limiting the number of CPU threads that PSLF may use.  To use the fix requires a patch to the SSTOOLS plug-in for EnFuzionSP. Please contact support@axceleon.com for the patch.

 

Major Update to PSLF Plug-ins in New Version of EnFuzionSP

Axceleon announces EnFuzionSP v 16.0.5865 with greatly improved plug-ins for PSLF SSTOOLS, DYTOOLS and ProvisoHD.

 

EnFuzionSP 16.0.5865 is a major new release of EnFuzionSP. This version significantly improves the ease-of-use for running PSLF with EnFuzionSP.  The major improvements in the PSLF plug-ins include:

 

– The PSLF DYTOOLS and SSTOOLS Plug-ins are now installed with the EnFuzionSP program. The users will no longer have to manually install and configure the plug-in files into their PSLF working directory.

– The DYTOOLS and SSTOOLS plug-ins will auto-detect PSLF installations on the computers and configures itself accordingly. The users will no longer have to manually change PSLF path and set up a PSLF compute pool.

– The temporary files created by the DYTOOLS and SSTOOLS plug-ins are written to specially created temporary directories. This prevents many EnFuzionSP files from being written into the PSLF working directories.

– The DYTOOLS and SSTOOLS plug-ins now accept ProvisoHD and Plot as checkbox options when the jobs are submitted. The users will no longer have to modify their template run files to accomplish this.

– The DYTOOLS and SSTOOLS plug-ins now delete duplicate copies of some output files and log files, helping to save disk space.

– A Template File field has been added to the DYTOOLS and SSTOOLS job submission GUI so that the users may switch between different template run files easily.

 

This update maybe installed as a patch on the user submit computers without the need to update the control root software or the compute node software.  Please contact Axceleon support for the update.

New Patch Available for the PSS®E Dynamics Plug-in for EnFuzionSP

Axceleon announces a new patch for EnFuzionSP to improve the concurrency and performance of PSS®E  dynamics studies.

 

The new patch for the PSS®E Dynamics Plug-in for EnFuzionSP improves the concurrency and performance when using EnFuzionSP to run many instances of PSS®E dynamic jobs in parallel.  Although it is possible to run the PSS®E Dynamics Plug-in without this patch, in situations when the compute nodes are loaded heavily, the users may experience a high number of reschedules.  The new patch corrects this situation.  The new patch may be installed on the user job submission machines only.  Please contact Axceleon support to obtain the new patch.

Axceleon Announces CloudFuzion for Automated On-Demand Cloud Computing

Axceleon Inc. announces the immediate availability of CloudFuzion, the fully automated on-demand cloud computing enabler software.

 

CloudFuzion extends the functionalities of EnFuzion by enabling high performance, parallel computing on the cloud.  CloudFuzion may be used for any cloud, but it is optimized for use with Amazon AWS.

 

Cloud computing offers its users transformative cost and productivity advantages.  CloudFuzion makes adopting cloud computing a practical reality by offering an easy to use interface.  Using CloudFuzion, the users may set up a computer cluster on the AWS cloud to operate in a secure, job-driven, fully automated and on-demand fashion.

 

For more information on CloudFuzion, please contact info@axceleon.com.

Axceleon Announces New EnFuzion Version 16.0.5865

Axceleon Inc. today announced the availability of EnFuzion v 16.0.5865 software.  All variants of the software, including EnFuzionSP and EnFuzionPWR are also available immediately at this version.

 

EnFuzion version 16.0.5865 is a major update of the EnFuzion software.  This release provides many improvement and bug fixes.  Please contact Axceleon support to obtain a release note for this release.  Axceleon recommends that all users of EnFuzion, EnFuzionPWR and EnFuzionSP to upgrade to this version of the software.