Airbus UK - Success Story
Airbus is a leading aircraft manufacturer with a family of airliners on the market ranging in capacity from 100 to more than 500 seats. The company has delivered over 3,100 aircraft to more than 180 customers worldwide since it first entered the market in the early 1970s, and it boasts a healthy order book of more than 1,500 aircraft to be delivered over the coming years.
Airbus, like other aerospace manufacturers, faces a number of challenges and urgent priorities, chief among them reducing program costs and compressing product development schedules. At the same time, the company is focused on producing lighter aircraft, which in turn reduce fuel requirements and costs, as well as optimizing payload and maintaining and enhancing performance. In addition, manufacturers must maintain up-to-date records, meet strict Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) and Joint Aviation Authority (JAA) regulations, and, above all, guarantee safety.
With their current and future competitiveness at stake, aircraft manufacturers require a high-performance\ technical computing (HPTC) platform that will scale to their computational requirements. At the same time, these companies place a high premium not only on performance, but also on compute stability, longevity, and affordability.
Airbus UK is demonstrating how the challenges facing manufacturers can be addressed by implementing an open HPTC reference architecture to optimize the use of digital simulation technology. Airbus UK uses HPTC systems from HP and other IT vendors to reduce engineering and test costs, as well as to improve engineering and analysis productivity in order to bring to market better aircraft at a lower total cost of hardware ownership.
Airbus UK uses a heterogeneous high-performance computing environment with hardware from HP, IBM, and Sun. The HP-UX 11i operating system from HP provides an open and flexible environment that helps Airbus UK integrate its HPTC infrastructure to efficiently run and maintain its computer-aided engineering (CAE) applications.
According to Nigel Barry, IT architect at Airbus’s Filton site near Bristol in the UK, Itanium 2–based HPTC technology has helped Airbus UK reduce costs by speeding simulation runs and reducing the amount of software optimization maintenance required. In the past, the amount of time required to run simulations was often very long and costly for Airbus UK. Indeed, many simulation routines could take weeks to run. “The cost associated with analysis is not in buying the hardware—it is in running the software,” explains Barry. “What HPTC means is that we can now run simulations faster. We could always run them, but we could not afford the time it would take to run the big simulations, because some of them would take many weeks to run. Now we can do 20 to 30 a night, and we can look for an optimum solution. We’ve probably got two or three orders of magnitude more computing power than we had 10 years ago.”
The value of an Intel® Itanium® reference architecture lies not just in the design phase but extends throughout the life of the aircraft. If a plane built 20 years ago requires service, the manufacturer must be able to rerun the analysis code exactly as it was performed 20 years ago to ensure an identical response. A manufacturer’s ability to react quickly to maintenance problems is an important measuring stick for the airlines, and reliable HPTC solutions can help ensure positive customer perception.
Another crucial area in which HPTC reference architecture reduces the total cost of ownership is software maintenance and optimization. Airbus UK estimates it has some 10,000 software applications in use; of those, only about 20 are from commercial software developers. The rest are internally developed proprietary codes. Of the 10,000 applications, the majority ar CAE or digital simulation applications, including applications for computational fluid dynamics (CFD), finite element analysis (FEA), aerodynamics, control systems, and structural analysis. The use of simulations has effectively revolutionized the wing design process, allowing for thousands more designs to be produced and analyzed and resulting in the most effective wing design—all in shorter timeframes. Digital simulations have also been very helpful in confirming Airbus UK designers’ estimates of an aircraft wing’s weight.
Digital simulation poses many computational challenges. Some applications are so large and complex that memory throughput and CPU performance become problems. In Airbus UK’s experience, Intel Itanium 2 processors have made advances in this area. “Intel Itanium 2 processors have exceptionally large memory bandwidth and are very good at parallel processing,” said Barry, “and it is that balance that makes the Intel Itanium 2 architecture better than a lot of other processors. And because Intel’s volume is high, they’re much more affordable. They actually perform better and they’re lower cost. That’s unique in 64-bit computing.” In addition, the Intel Itanium 2 processors are more highly scalable, according to Barry, providing Airbus UK with much sought after operational flexibility to run multiple applications at once.
Over the last few years, Airbus UK has upgraded its servers from Convex, IBM MVS, and DEC VAX to HP V-Class enterprise and HP Superdome 64-bit PA-RISC servers. Today, Airbus further upgraded to Itanium 2–based HP Integrity servers and the HP-UX 11i operating system. The robust HP-UX 11i compilers and development environment have allowed the company to port CAE applications from multiple hardware platforms to the Itanium 2–based Integrity servers. While the cost of porting the software to run on the Intel Itanium 2 architecture was not insignificant, Airbus UK believes that the computing power and the standardization of Itanium 2–based Integrity servers means it will not have to move to a new CAE infrastructure any time soon.
“This gets back to the necessity of having standard HPTC reference architecture. We want an architecture with a very long life, so by using HP-UX 11i and Itanium 2–based Integrity servers in the beginning, we hope to optimize those key applications to move forward so they do last a long time. Performance won’t be an issue in 60 years—it will be an issue of whether or not they will be able to run the applications.” Airbus UK is banking on the combination of a standard Intel Itanium 2 reference architecture and the reliability of the HP-UX 11i operating system (OS) to enable it to do so.
Barry counts the reliability of HP-UX 11i among its greatest strengths. When a failure occurs with the OS, the resulting downtime can be very costly. Certain longterm optimization routines can take two to three weeks to complete, and an OS failure in the middle of a long run may set Airbus UK back weeks. “Airbus UK requires a stable operating system that doesn’t break down. That obviously creates more uptime. HP-UX 11i is the most reliable. It can handle temporary failures of the application without crashing the machine. That’s one of the problems with Linux—you do tend to lose the machine if you have a crash on an application,” said Barry.
Another benefit of HP, according to Airbus UK, is its strong ISV support team. “When it comes to the thirdparty ISV applications that we do run, like NASTRAN and ABAQUS for instance, we rely on the vendor to optimize the application to run as fast as possible on their hardware,” said Barry. “HP has a very good ISV support team.”
This HPTC infrastructure has enabled Airbus UK to dispense with physical testing altogether in some areas and to dramatically reduce it in others. An example of the progress Airbus UK has made by combining the highperformance Intel Itanium 2 reference architecture with its digital simulation applications is illustrated in the development stages of the A340-600 and A380 aircraft. In the recent past, Airbus UK would have built not only full-wing test rigs but also a large number of component and subassembly test rigs. The ability to carry out detailed digital simulations has increased the company’s confidence that many of these preliminary tests are no longer required.
The HP and Airbus UK partnership has spanned many years, and it was with the collaboration of Airbus UK that the HP-UX 11i operating system was first introduced. An important aspect of the partnership is that Airbus UK, as well as other manufacturers with advanced technical computing demands, can influence the actual design of the hardware and operating system.
Barry believes Airbus UK’s relationship with HP is built on a high level of trust. “I think we’ve reached the point now that if someone wanted to change how a major piece of software worked in HP, or a piece of hardware, Airbus would be one of the companies HP asks first, ‘Do you want this to happen? Will you want it to be done differently?’ And we’re happy to oblige.”
This partnership is not one-sided. In many ways, Airbus UK is helping HP to define architecture, which can then be applied to other technical, as well as commercial, server solutions. This close collaboration helps keep HP at the cutting edge of computer technology and, at the same time, enables Airbus UK to run highly advanced, yet commodity-based computer technology. Says Barry, “We want to run a commodity computer infrastructure—the very top end of the commodity—but a commodity computer system nonetheless. So the fact that other companies run the same computer for different purposes is a great benefit to us. It is not cost-effective to run a unique and very expensive computer. The Intel Itanium 2 platform is the next step in commodity computing.”
© 2006 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. Intel and Itanium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
This case study is based on a Best Practices Report/White Paper conducted and written by Daratech, Inc., titled “The Value of High-Performance Technical Computing Reference Architecture for Advanced Digital Simulation in the Aerospace Industry: The Airbus UK Story.” These and other issues are the focus of Daratech’s annual conference titled daratechDPS Aero: Digital Product Simulation Strategies for Aerospace and Defense. Details are available at www.daratech.com. Daratech is a market research and technology assessment firm specializing in CAD/CAM, CAE, PDM, ERP, BOM, plant creation, and GIS.
4AA0-3511ENW, April 2006
Airbus, like other aerospace manufacturers, faces a number of challenges and urgent priorities, chief among them reducing program costs and compressing product development schedules. At the same time, the company is focused on producing lighter aircraft, which in turn reduce fuel requirements and costs, as well as optimizing payload and maintaining and enhancing performance. In addition, manufacturers must maintain up-to-date records, meet strict Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) and Joint Aviation Authority (JAA) regulations, and, above all, guarantee safety.
With their current and future competitiveness at stake, aircraft manufacturers require a high-performance\ technical computing (HPTC) platform that will scale to their computational requirements. At the same time, these companies place a high premium not only on performance, but also on compute stability, longevity, and affordability.
Airbus UK is demonstrating how the challenges facing manufacturers can be addressed by implementing an open HPTC reference architecture to optimize the use of digital simulation technology. Airbus UK uses HPTC systems from HP and other IT vendors to reduce engineering and test costs, as well as to improve engineering and analysis productivity in order to bring to market better aircraft at a lower total cost of hardware ownership.
Airbus UK uses a heterogeneous high-performance computing environment with hardware from HP, IBM, and Sun. The HP-UX 11i operating system from HP provides an open and flexible environment that helps Airbus UK integrate its HPTC infrastructure to efficiently run and maintain its computer-aided engineering (CAE) applications.
According to Nigel Barry, IT architect at Airbus’s Filton site near Bristol in the UK, Itanium 2–based HPTC technology has helped Airbus UK reduce costs by speeding simulation runs and reducing the amount of software optimization maintenance required. In the past, the amount of time required to run simulations was often very long and costly for Airbus UK. Indeed, many simulation routines could take weeks to run. “The cost associated with analysis is not in buying the hardware—it is in running the software,” explains Barry. “What HPTC means is that we can now run simulations faster. We could always run them, but we could not afford the time it would take to run the big simulations, because some of them would take many weeks to run. Now we can do 20 to 30 a night, and we can look for an optimum solution. We’ve probably got two or three orders of magnitude more computing power than we had 10 years ago.”
The value of an Intel® Itanium® reference architecture lies not just in the design phase but extends throughout the life of the aircraft. If a plane built 20 years ago requires service, the manufacturer must be able to rerun the analysis code exactly as it was performed 20 years ago to ensure an identical response. A manufacturer’s ability to react quickly to maintenance problems is an important measuring stick for the airlines, and reliable HPTC solutions can help ensure positive customer perception.
Another crucial area in which HPTC reference architecture reduces the total cost of ownership is software maintenance and optimization. Airbus UK estimates it has some 10,000 software applications in use; of those, only about 20 are from commercial software developers. The rest are internally developed proprietary codes. Of the 10,000 applications, the majority ar CAE or digital simulation applications, including applications for computational fluid dynamics (CFD), finite element analysis (FEA), aerodynamics, control systems, and structural analysis. The use of simulations has effectively revolutionized the wing design process, allowing for thousands more designs to be produced and analyzed and resulting in the most effective wing design—all in shorter timeframes. Digital simulations have also been very helpful in confirming Airbus UK designers’ estimates of an aircraft wing’s weight.
Digital simulation poses many computational challenges. Some applications are so large and complex that memory throughput and CPU performance become problems. In Airbus UK’s experience, Intel Itanium 2 processors have made advances in this area. “Intel Itanium 2 processors have exceptionally large memory bandwidth and are very good at parallel processing,” said Barry, “and it is that balance that makes the Intel Itanium 2 architecture better than a lot of other processors. And because Intel’s volume is high, they’re much more affordable. They actually perform better and they’re lower cost. That’s unique in 64-bit computing.” In addition, the Intel Itanium 2 processors are more highly scalable, according to Barry, providing Airbus UK with much sought after operational flexibility to run multiple applications at once.
Over the last few years, Airbus UK has upgraded its servers from Convex, IBM MVS, and DEC VAX to HP V-Class enterprise and HP Superdome 64-bit PA-RISC servers. Today, Airbus further upgraded to Itanium 2–based HP Integrity servers and the HP-UX 11i operating system. The robust HP-UX 11i compilers and development environment have allowed the company to port CAE applications from multiple hardware platforms to the Itanium 2–based Integrity servers. While the cost of porting the software to run on the Intel Itanium 2 architecture was not insignificant, Airbus UK believes that the computing power and the standardization of Itanium 2–based Integrity servers means it will not have to move to a new CAE infrastructure any time soon.
“This gets back to the necessity of having standard HPTC reference architecture. We want an architecture with a very long life, so by using HP-UX 11i and Itanium 2–based Integrity servers in the beginning, we hope to optimize those key applications to move forward so they do last a long time. Performance won’t be an issue in 60 years—it will be an issue of whether or not they will be able to run the applications.” Airbus UK is banking on the combination of a standard Intel Itanium 2 reference architecture and the reliability of the HP-UX 11i operating system (OS) to enable it to do so.
Barry counts the reliability of HP-UX 11i among its greatest strengths. When a failure occurs with the OS, the resulting downtime can be very costly. Certain longterm optimization routines can take two to three weeks to complete, and an OS failure in the middle of a long run may set Airbus UK back weeks. “Airbus UK requires a stable operating system that doesn’t break down. That obviously creates more uptime. HP-UX 11i is the most reliable. It can handle temporary failures of the application without crashing the machine. That’s one of the problems with Linux—you do tend to lose the machine if you have a crash on an application,” said Barry.
Another benefit of HP, according to Airbus UK, is its strong ISV support team. “When it comes to the thirdparty ISV applications that we do run, like NASTRAN and ABAQUS for instance, we rely on the vendor to optimize the application to run as fast as possible on their hardware,” said Barry. “HP has a very good ISV support team.”
This HPTC infrastructure has enabled Airbus UK to dispense with physical testing altogether in some areas and to dramatically reduce it in others. An example of the progress Airbus UK has made by combining the highperformance Intel Itanium 2 reference architecture with its digital simulation applications is illustrated in the development stages of the A340-600 and A380 aircraft. In the recent past, Airbus UK would have built not only full-wing test rigs but also a large number of component and subassembly test rigs. The ability to carry out detailed digital simulations has increased the company’s confidence that many of these preliminary tests are no longer required.
The HP and Airbus UK partnership has spanned many years, and it was with the collaboration of Airbus UK that the HP-UX 11i operating system was first introduced. An important aspect of the partnership is that Airbus UK, as well as other manufacturers with advanced technical computing demands, can influence the actual design of the hardware and operating system.
Barry believes Airbus UK’s relationship with HP is built on a high level of trust. “I think we’ve reached the point now that if someone wanted to change how a major piece of software worked in HP, or a piece of hardware, Airbus would be one of the companies HP asks first, ‘Do you want this to happen? Will you want it to be done differently?’ And we’re happy to oblige.”
This partnership is not one-sided. In many ways, Airbus UK is helping HP to define architecture, which can then be applied to other technical, as well as commercial, server solutions. This close collaboration helps keep HP at the cutting edge of computer technology and, at the same time, enables Airbus UK to run highly advanced, yet commodity-based computer technology. Says Barry, “We want to run a commodity computer infrastructure—the very top end of the commodity—but a commodity computer system nonetheless. So the fact that other companies run the same computer for different purposes is a great benefit to us. It is not cost-effective to run a unique and very expensive computer. The Intel Itanium 2 platform is the next step in commodity computing.”
© 2006 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. Intel and Itanium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
This case study is based on a Best Practices Report/White Paper conducted and written by Daratech, Inc., titled “The Value of High-Performance Technical Computing Reference Architecture for Advanced Digital Simulation in the Aerospace Industry: The Airbus UK Story.” These and other issues are the focus of Daratech’s annual conference titled daratechDPS Aero: Digital Product Simulation Strategies for Aerospace and Defense. Details are available at www.daratech.com. Daratech is a market research and technology assessment firm specializing in CAD/CAM, CAE, PDM, ERP, BOM, plant creation, and GIS.
4AA0-3511ENW, April 2006
