Grid Computing User Guide

Setup InterPSS Grid Computing Environment

You can easily set up InterPSS grid computing solution where there are network-connected servers or PC/laptops, as shown in the above diagram. All computers, participating in the grid computing, should be located in the same subnetwork. Different operating systems, such as Windows, Linux, McOS, could be used, as far as there is a Java Runtime (Java 6.0) installed on each machine.

Install and Configure Graidgain Agent

When install InterPSS, please make sure that the Grid Computing Library is included in the installation. After the installation, use the <InterPSS Install>/runGrid.bat batch file to run InterPSS in Grid Computing mode. You may need to make changes to reflect your Gridgain installation location in the runGrid.bat file, as follows:

REM

REM set Gridgain installation location

REM

set GRIDGAIN_HOME=<Graingain installation location>

You need first to start one or more Gridgain agents, then start InterPSS by running the runGrid.bat. After starting InterPSS, you can check if your grid computing environment is set up properly by selecting the Tools/Debug/Test Grid Environment.

Install and Configure InterPSS for Grid Computing

Please note: The guide is based on the following versions:
            InterPSS : version 1.4, available from SourceForge
            GridGain : version 1.6.1 (please contact us support@interpss.com if you cannot find this version)

After the installation, use the <InterPSS Install>/runGrid.bat batch file to start GEditor in Grid Computing mode. You may need to make changes to reflect your Java and/or Gridgain installation location in the runGrid.bat file, as follows:

set GRIDGAIN_HOME=<GridGain installation location>

"C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0\bin\java" -> your Java installation location

You need first to start one or more Gridgain agents, then start GEditor by running the runGrid.bat. After starting GEditor, you can check if your grid computing environment is set up properly by selecting the Tools/Debug/Test Grid Environment.

You may get the following message, if the environment is not set up properly or there is no grid node running in the environment.

You have to run the same version GridGain across all nodes (Master and Remote). Otherwise you might get the following error message:

Remote node has different: build version

Local node: 1.6.0-16102007

Remote node: 1.5.1-13082007

Run Grid Simulation in GUI Mode

InterPSS provides a GUI to allow you to select a remote node and distribute a simulation case to run remotely. Please note, you can only run one simulation case one time. Therefore this approach is more for testing purpose.

Run Remote Loadflow

Select Run Loadflow and launch the Loadflow Analysis dialog. You will then see the Enable Grid Computing checkbox enabled, if your grid computing environment is set properly. After selecting the checkbox, the available Grid nodes in your Grid Computing environment will be discovered and listed in the Select Grid Node dropdown list. At this time you can select any available grid node to distribute your Loadflow job.

Click the Run button to run InterPSS grid computing. If you are running the grid job on a particular grid node the first time, after starting the environment, it may take a while to get Loadflow calculation results back. The reason is that the compiled InterPSS simulation engine code, a set of Java class files, has to be deployed through the network to the remote grid node. Click the Refresh button to discover new grid node(s) and refresh the available grid node list.

Please note:

    • During the installation process, InterPSS is only required to be installed on the master node, not on the remote grid node. When a grid job is distributed to a remote grid node the first time, the Grid Computing environment discovers that no code for running the grid job is available on the remote grid node. It will perform an automatic deployment of InterPSS grid computing code to the grid node. Then after the first time, if you run another grid job on the same remote grid node again, the response time will be very fast, since there is no need to do the deployment again. No noticeable difference from running grid job on local machine should be noticed, unless your network is very slow or busy.
    • InterPSS core engine library could also be installed on all grid nodes and loaded into memory when starting the grid node. In this way, there won’t be any delay of the response even at the first time, since there is no need to remotely deploy InterPSS grid code. This way, however, will increase InterPSS grid computing solution administration overhead.

Loadflow Reuslts

The Loadflow result indicates that the computation is performed at the “Remote Logical Node – 1”. Also, you will see Loadflow logging information printed out in the remote Gridgain agent output console, as follows:

Run Remote Transient Stability Simulation

You can distribute a typical InterPSS transient stability simulation case to a remote grid node and perform the simulation remotely. The simulation result will be sent back to the master node through messages for display purpose.

Please Note: Currently you are limited to use only InterPSS built-in controller models for the grid-based distributed simulation. We will provide detailed documentation in the future to guide user to package user-defined controller models to make them ready for the grid computing purpose.

Run Simulation Case Remotely

Assume you are working on a transient stability simulation project, for example, the samples/DStab-5Bus.ipss project in the sample workspace. One or more grid agent(s) are running in your computer sub-network. . Check the Enable Grid Computing and select an available remote grid node to distribute the simulation.

Transient stability simulation result will be sent from the remote grid node to the master node real-time through messaging while running the simulation. This may increase your computer network traffic and slow down the simulation process if too much simulation information is sending back, and the simulation power network is quite large. By selecting the Output State/Variable Filter checkbox and clicking the Output Filter tab, you can select a sub-set information to be sent back for display. In the following example, only machine states at Bus 0004 and bus states at Bus 0001 are sent back to the master node for display.

While running transient stability simulation at a remote grid node, you should see the log information printed in the remote grid node console as follows:

Display Simulation Results

Simulation result at a remote grid node are sent through messaging back to the master node real-time while running the simulation. The result is saved into InterPSS database at the master node. After completing a remote simulation run, right click a bus to plot the simulation result.

The following is a sample plot of a bus voltage response. You should see no difference between running the simulation case locally node or at a remote grid node.

Distributed Parallel Power System Simulation

To evaluate the transient stability of a real-world power network requires multiple simulation runs. InterPSS grid computing allows you to distribute a set of power system simulation cases to remote grid notes and perform simulation in parallel. Simulation results are sent back to the master grid node through network messages for display purpose. Currently, you have to use InterPSS Custom Scripting Run option and XML as the scripting language to perform multiple case run.

    • InterPSS XML Document - You can find more information about how to create an XML document and control InterPSS running process.
    • Custom Scripting Run - You can find more information about how to run InterPSS using custom scripts.

Multi-Case Loadflow Analysis

Follow the following steps to run the IEEE-14Bus sample case:

    • Start one or more Gridgain agents and start InterPSS in grid computing mode
    • Select the samples/IEEE-14Bus.ipss project
    • Click Run/Custom Run Scripts or the J toolbar button. Select XML as the scripting language.
    • IEEE-14Bus.ipss comes with 4 sample XML documents (IEEE-14Bus_RunOneRemoteCase.xml ...), as shown in the following diagram. Open and copy the content of one of the sample XML documents to the text area.
    • If you run the RunMultiRemoteCase case, you should see the following output screen with indication of where loadflow case was run.

Multi-case Transient Stability Simulation

Follow the following steps to run the DStab-5Bus sample case:

    • Start one or more Gridgain agents and InterPSS in grid computing mode
    • Select the samples/DStab-5Bus.ipss project
    • Click Run/Custom Run Scripts or the J Toolbar button. Select XML as the scripting language.
    • DStab-5Bus.ipss comes with 4 sample XML documents (DStab-5Bus_RunOneRemoteCase.xml ...), as shown in the following diagram. Open and copy the content of one of the sample XML documents to the text area.
    • After the run, right-click Bus-1 or Bus-4 to display simulation results
    • If you run multiple cases, you can right-click on the Editor screen to switch between simulation cases.