The International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE) develops and offers its clients the GiD application, which is designed to cover all common needs in the field of numerical simulation—from pre-processing to post-processing. This includes geometric modeling, efficient definition of analysis data, meshing, data transfer to the analysis software, as well as the analysis and visualization of numerical results.

GiD Simulation is the online environment where users can purchase GiD and access all associated support services: product documentation, a query forum, application resources, tools for automating daily tasks, and both the store and download site for product versions.

This environment is currently deployed in a monolithic architecture. To ensure availability and service quality in anticipation of the growing demand for GiD, CIMNE is considering migrating GiD Simulation to Amazon Web Services (AWS). By taking advantage of AWS’s managed services, the organization aims to reduce administration costs, optimize deployment time and expenses, benefit from elasticity, and guarantee high availability.

To achieve these goals, IThinkUPC has proposed evolving GiD Simulation to a container-based model supported by AWS services. This transformation not only modernizes the architecture but also introduces new approaches to developing and deploying updates, as well as administering the environment.

The project was carried out in the following phases:

• Initial consultancy to analyze requirements and review the current architecture.
• Design of the new architecture and the updated workflow model.
• Implementation of the architecture and creation of pre-production and production environments.
• Transformation of applications toward a container-based model.
• Validation of the new platform.
• Migration and transition to production.
• Advisory on CI/CD and DevOps best practices.
• Documentation and knowledge transfer.

Within the architecture, we can highlight the use of the following services:

• EKS, as a managed Kubernetes platform service, operating in multi-AZ mode to ensure high availability.
• Cloudfront, as a CDN, facilitates global access to the portal.
• S3 Storage Service.
• Synthetics Canaries for executing scheduled processes.
• RDS databases, which also help reduce the workload of CIMNE staff in platform administration.

GiD Simulation is hosted on AWS and runs on a Kubernetes-based architecture managed in accordance with DevOps principles. The integration of these three elements has enabled the following:

1. CIMNE now has an agile and scalable business platform. With the adoption of its first container-based environment, they have taken the initial step on their DevOps journey.
2. Having an architecture based on EKS on AWS enables them to implement automation around the platform while also scaling (whether in volume or through new applications) in an agile and effortless manner, thereby reducing the necessary administrative tasks.
3. The platform has improved its availability and optimized both the quantity and volume of resources required for its operation.

This project has been the first phase of a transformation plan for GiD Simulation, through which users will soon be able to access additional services in the field of numerical simulations on a SaaS basis.