Platforms and Licencing

Relating CPU and OS architectures to licence type

The above table is intended to highlight the range of CPU and operating system architectures that FEKO works with and how licencing differs for different architectures.    The nature of electromagnetics simulation is that computer resource requirements grow rapidly as problem size and complexity grows.  In such scenarios the benefits of an efficiently parallellized solver (such as FEKO's) become critically important.  It is therefore important to note, that the above mentioned architectures can be networked to form cluster computers and can be integrated into large-scale server computers for improved simulation performance.

Examples of such systems include:

• Intel Cluster Ready systems provided by Intel certified installers.
• SGI Altix systems.
• Generic Beowulf clusters (also multi-core nodes)

Various interconnecting technologies are supported by FEKO, including:

• NumaFlex for SGI Altix systems
• Infiniband through DAPL
• GigaBit Ethernet
• Myrinet

Licence options

Licence types

• Pricing categories depend on platform and can be Silver, Gold or Platinum.
• All licence categories are available as sequential (single CPU) or parallel (multiple CPU) licences.
• GUI-only version (kernel included, but limited to 32 MByte) typically used as desktop interface in multi-user configuration.  Available on Silver and Gold licences.
  
• Classroom Licence (kernel included, but limited to 512 MByte).
• FEKO LITE (Limited, licenced, but FREE version of FEKO).
• Floating licences are supported via single or redundant licence server configurations.
• Dongle licencing is supported for multiple installations of a single licence. Note that dongle licencing is only supported for Windows and Linux on IA32, AMD64, EM64T, and IA64 platforms.
• Educational licence options are available for academic institutions or the creators of teaching material.

Sequential vs parallel licencing

• A sequential licence may run a simulation in parallel on all the physical cores of a single multi-core CPU.  E.g. 4 cores can simulate in parallel on a quad-core CPU.
  
• A parallel licence may run a simulation in parallel on all the cores of the number of CPUs that the licence is valid for.  E.g. 8 cores can simulate in parallel on a parallel licence for 2 quad-core CPUs.
  

GUI licences

• The Graphical User Interface (GUI) is available for Windows and Linux and part of Silver and Gold licences.
• Two GUI-only licences are included per Platinum licence (as the FEKO GUI is not available on Platinum platforms).
  
• Additional GUI-only licences can be purchased.

CAD import and export modules

• The CADFEKO and Parasolid import and export modules are a standard component of CADFEKO. The other modules require additional licences.
• The following CAD import and export modules are available:

Mesh import modules

The following mesh import modules are available on all versions of FEKO:

• FEMAP neutral, NASTRAN, AutoCAD DXF, STL, PATRAN, ANSYS CDB, Concept, ABAQUS, NEC, GiD

Notes

Kernel 32-bit or 64-bit

• 32-bit (Silver category) systems can only address 2 GBytes of RAM per process.
• 64-bit (Gold and Platinum category) systems can address more than 2 GBytes of RAM per process and therefore have an advantage over 32-bit systems.

GUI 32-bit or 64-bit

• 64-bit (Gold and Platinum category) systems use 64-bit versions of the GUI (CADFEKO, POSTFEKO, etc.) and therefore can render and mesh larger sized models than 32-bit (32-bit systems have been found to be limited to approximately 1 million elements).