Running long simulations on Matlab Online

Hi all,

I have Monte-Carlo simulations that take hours to finish (~ 17 hours). I was using a Desktop in my university Lab for this purpose, where I can keep it ON for days. But unfortunately, now I can't access it and I can't run Matlab on my laptop for that long time. By coincidence I discovered Matlab Online, and I'm wondering now is there a way to keep my code running on it even after I log out. Also, can it run 'parfor'.

Best Regards,

[AKASH BHOYAR]

Even I have similar kind of computation requirement (approx 72hours). Any ideas by anybody ?

Answer 1

[Edric Ellis]

You could run a batch job submitted from your desktop machine to a cluster somewhere. You need access to a MATLAB Distributed Computing Server cluster installation. Perhaps your university already has one; otherwise, you might be able to take advantage of one of the cloud computing offerings that allow you to run batch jobs.

[Hussein Ammar]

I don't think I can get access to a cluster installation even if my university has one. Regarding cloud computing, is there any free online service that can run my Matlab file and return the result. Also, I think an online solution can run a lot of parallel workers that will finish the simulation in a much less time (on my PC I can only run 4 parallel workers and the simulation ends in about 17 hours).

[Walter Roberson]

I doubt you would be able to find a service that was willing to give you 17 hours of free computing (if services like that existed, people would use them for bitcoin mining.)

What you just might be able to find is a research computing service together with grants to pay for the service. For example, https://aws.amazon.com/grants/ or https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/academic-program/azure-research-award-ai-earth/

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

Unfortunately, MATLAB Online will not keep running after you log out, and it also has an interaction time-out of 50 minutes.

I have no information about whether it can run parfor.

[Wolfgang Schwanghart]

I don't think so. I just tried

gcp

and it returns an empty pool object.

[Walter Roberson]

Indeed, Parallel Computing Toolbox is not one of the supported toolboxes listed at https://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab-online/limitations.html at present.

[Walter Roberson]

MATLAB Online only permits something less than 5 minutes of computation at a time, so it could not be used for this purpose anyhow.

[Sugar Mummy]

Hi @Walter Roberson I am using MATLAB-academic. My model is running fine for small time interval but not for long time simulation (~ 1800000 sec). Can you guide regarding this?

Answer 3

[Anil Jangid]

Background

You can add a custom function at the end of your script. For data preprocessing, the function should take the data returned from the datastore as input. It should return the transformed data as output.

function dataout = functionName(datain)

% do something with datain

dataout = ...

end

TASKCreate a function called scale at the end of the script that performs the following operations:

data.Time = (data.Time - data.Time(1))/1000;

data.X = 1.5*data.X;

Because these commands modify the variable data directly, your function should use data as both the input and output variable.

Note that the third line of the script calls the scale function. Your script won't run until this function has been created.

Also note that local functions must be at the end of a script. This means you will be editing the script sections out of order in this interaction. The section headings show which section of the script to edit in each task.

[Walter Roberson]

This is not a solution to the question asked.