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Software

section-index · Reviewed 2026-09-14

How software works on Rescale as a platform capability: what a managed package gives you, how versions and tiles are organized, the two licensing models, and what to do when the application you need is not in the catalog.

Rescale hosts and maintains hundreds of simulation applications. You do not install them, patch them, or build them against an MPI stack. You pick a package and a version at job setup, and Rescale supplies a machine image where that combination already works on the hardware you chose.

This page is the orientation. For the list of what is available and how to run a specific product, see Software Catalog.

What a managed package includes​

Selecting a package on the Software step does more than pick a binary:

  • The application, pinned to a version. Built and tested against the coretypes it supports, so a version that appears for your hardware is a version that runs on it.
  • A working parallel environment. MPI libraries, the interconnect drivers for the coretype, and the host files the solver expects, generated per run. See Solver run commands.
  • A command template. A suggested command line for that package, so you are editing a known-good invocation rather than writing one from scratch.
  • Licence plumbing. The environment variables each vendor's tooling reads, wired to whichever licensing model you use.

Versions and tiles​

Two distinctions matter when you are choosing from the catalog.

Versions are explicit. A tile carries several versions, and you choose one at job setup rather than getting whichever is newest. That matters for a study part-way through validation, where changing solver version changes your results. Administrators can hide versions they no longer want used, so the list you see may be narrower than the catalog.

Batch and interactive are separate tiles. The same application usually appears more than once: a batch tile that runs headless and returns results, and a GUI or interactive tile that streams the application's own interface to your browser. They are distinct entries with distinct identifiers, so a script that submits to one will not reach the other. See Workstations for the interactive path.

Some packages also ship companion tiles, such as a post-processor or a licence utility, which you add alongside the solver in the same job.

Licensing​

Every commercial package needs a licence, and there are two ways to supply one:

ModelHow it worksBest for
On-demandRescale provides the licence and meters it with the runBursty or occasional use, and evaluation
Bring your ownYour own licence server, reached through a Company License Proxy or hosted by RescaleExisting licence investment, and volume use

Not every package offers both, and which are available to you depends on your agreement with the software vendor. Licensing covers the mechanics of both, including License Server Setup and the vendor-specific environment variables.

When the catalog does not have what you need​

  1. Ask for the tile. If a package is in the Rescale catalog but not enabled for your workspace, your account team can enable it.
  2. Bring Your Own Software. Package a custom build, an in-house code, a containerized application, or a version Rescale does not carry, and publish it as a tile your workspace selects like any other. A published version is frozen, so jobs can pin to it.

Who controls what your workspace sees​

Software availability is an administrative setting rather than a per-user one. Software filters let an organization or workspace admin expose only an approved subset of the catalog, which is how teams restrict users to solvers they already license, hide deprecated versions during a migration, or scope a workspace to one discipline. Users in that scope see only the filtered list when they open the catalog during job setup.

See Browsing the Catalog for how to create and assign one.