Azure

Introduction

You can find the Composabl Training Cluster Azure application here

This will set up a fully functional Composabl Training Cluster on your Azure tenant.

Prerequisites

1. An active Azure subscription

2. Quota for the supported VM sizes (see later during setup)

3. If using GPU training, you'll need quota for GPU-enabled nodes (such as the NCasT4_v3 series)

Overview

Setting up your cluster consists of the following steps:

1. Registering a new cluster in Composabl

2. Running through the wizard in Azure

Registering a new cluster in Composabl

1. Head to Composabl and navigate to the clusters page.

2. Choose "Create Cluster"

3. Select "Azure Cluster"

1. Take note of the Cluster ID and License key - you'll need them during the setup wizard on Azure, then click "Create on Azure"

Creating your cluster on Azure

1. Visit the Microsoft Azure Marketplace page here
2. Click "Create" to start the setup wizard

1. On the first step, select a resource group to create the cluster in. We recommend you use a new Resource Group made specifically for this purpose. Give the resource a descriptive name.

1. On the second step, fill in the following:

• Cluster name - this is a technical name and should be unique for all AKS clusters in your Azure subscription

• Kubernetes version - select the latest version, unless a policy prevents you from doing so. Only supported versions are listed.

• Container registry name - this is the name of the container registry you'll be pushing your simulator images to. As with the Cluster name, this name has to be unique for all Azure Container Registries in your Azure subscription.

• GPU Training - Check this if you want to use GPUs to accelerate training.

• Various VM sizes - See VM sizing and types for additional information on each of these
• Scaling settings - Whether to enable autoscaling, and limits for the autoscaling, if enabled. Note that we recommend you leave autoscaling enabled, as this can significantly reduce costs.

1. On the final step, fill in the Cluster ID and License key you received during your Cluster Registration

• The advanced settings should not be used unless you require specific features to be enabled for testing or support purposes.

Finally, click "Review + Create" to review the settings and create your training cluster.

VM sizing and types

A Composabl cluster consists of up to 6 different node types:

1. Main nodes - these are Kubernetes system nodes, used for running the Kubernetes master processes

2. Composabl nodes - these nodes run the Composabl software - e.g. the Composabl Controller and the Historian processor

3. Environment runner nodes - The Composabl SDK will manage the simulator instances from these nodes. If GPU training is disabled, the training process will run on these nodes as well.

4. Simulator nodes: These nodes are where the simulator(s) will be running

If you have enabled GPU training and/or GPU simulators, you will have the following: 5. (GPU Training enabled) Learner nodes - these GPU-enabled nodes will perform the actual training on GPU, after samples are collected from the simulators 6. (GPU Training + GPU Sims enabled) - these nodes will run GPU-enabled simulators.

For most cases, we recommend leaving the default sizing. If no quota is available in these for you, you have the option to change to a similar node size for any of these.