Run FlexSim "in the cloud"?

Instead of provisioning a desktop or laptop PC that meets FlexSim's recommended system requirements, you may prefer for your FlexSim users to use a thin client PC which connects to a more powerful back end system that actually runs FlexSim.

FlexSim does not test our products in such environments, so your user experience may vary.

Meet the system requirements

It is important that the remote system meet or exceed FlexSim's recommended system requirements. Usually for CPU and RAM that is not a problem. In the past, the biggest hurdle was typically graphics. Does the remote machine support hardware accelerated graphics, and support streaming those graphics to the thin client where the user is actually sitting? If the graphics are not accelerated, or if accelerated graphics can't be streamed to the user, then the system doesn't meet FlexSim's requirements and you may have a bad user experience.

In the past

In the past, provisioning such a system to meet FlexSim's requirements was quite a specialized combination of hardware and software. Even today not every cloud provider has the infrastructure to stream accelerated graphics. Our anecdotal experience is that such set ups are becoming more common among 3rd party cloud providers.

Going forward

Major players now seem to have mainstream support for hardware accelerated graphics:

As mentioned above, FlexSim is not targeted to these environments and the software is not tested in these environments, so your mileage may vary.

Conclusion

With more and more cloud providers enabling hardware accelerated graphics, there is a chance that FlexSim could work well on a cloud-based platform.

If you have tried running FlexSim remotely using one of these or another cloud provider, we'd love to hear your experience. Please comment below to let us know about your setup, what worked, and what didn't.

sachin T3 commented · Jun 22, 2022 at 06:30 PM

Hello, I want a similar solution. I want to create model and put them into the cloud so that anyone can run and get the results from the system. At the same time I dont want them to make any changes into the system. The data will be passed into the FlexSim model by using some API and the same API will provide user a option to run the model. Model will run in the backend and generate reports which can be then downloaded by User. They will not physically see the model running it will all happen in Backend. this is mainly because we dont want to train every user to run the model.

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Ben Wilson ♦♦ sachin T3 commented · Jun 22, 2022 at 06:40 PM

@sachin T3 , your description sounds like a use-case more suited to the FlexSim Webserver.

yuan zhang commented · Oct 23, 2023 at 10:34 AM

@Ben Wilson Hi Ben,We are exploring the deployment of software and models to cloud platforms that can provide CPU, RAM, and support hardware accelerated graphics that meet FlexSim configuration requirements.But the operating system is Windows Server.Does FlexSim and its model support deployment on Windows server systems？Could you give us some suggestions if we try cloud deployment?

Thanks

Ben Wilson ♦♦ yuan zhang commented · Oct 23, 2023 at 02:54 PM

@yuan zhang Windows does a really great job maintaining application compatibility across their supported Operating Systems. Providing the hardware meets FlexSim's recommendations and you have proper driver support you should find that FlexSim will install and run just fine on current Windows Server versions.