Premium Solver Platform 8.0
Introduction
Solve much larger problems -- up to 2,000 variables -- at speeds five to twenty times faster than the standard Solver. And the Premium Solver Platform is expandable with Field-Installable Solver Engines to handle problems of virtually unlimited size. Many users solve problems with hundreds of thousands of variables and constraints.
Advanced features
- Multi-worksheet models with decision variables and constraints on any worksheet
- Allows worksheets of up to 16,000 columns and 1 million rows in Excel 2007
- LP/Quadratic Solver Handles Problems up to 2,000 Variables
- GRG Solver Handles Smooth Nonlinear Problems up to 500 Variables
- Interval Global Solver Handles Global Optimization Problems up to 500 Variables
- Hybrid Evolutionary Solver Handles Non-Smooth Problems up to 500 Variables
- New SOCP Barrier Solver Handles Linear and Conic Problems up to 2,000 Variables
- New Cone Constraints and Alldifferent Constraints Offer Greater Modeling Power
- New Model Analyzer Detects Linear, Quadratic, Smooth, Convex and Nonsmooth Formulas
- New Model Transformer Converts IF, MIN, MAX, Other Functions to Linear Equivalents
The Premium Solver Platform includes Frontline's Polymorphic Spreadsheet Interpreter that replaces the core of Excel with a dramatically improved ability to analyse your spreadsheet models for linear, quadratic, smooth nonlinear, and nonsmooth functions -- and, in a research breakthrough not available in any other commercial software, automatically determine (in many cases) whether your nonlinear model is convex -- the key property that makes it possible to solve your model quickly and reliably, to very large size.
Includes support for second order cone programming (SOCP) -- the natural generalisation of linear and quadratic programming -- with new, easy to use second order cone (SOC) constraints, a new SOCP Barrier Solver built-in to the Premium Solver Platform, and the new, field-installable MOSEK Solver Engine, widely regarded as the world's best Solver for SOCP problems.
And if your model uses common Excel functions like IF, MIN. MAX, ABS, AND, OR and NOT and comparison operators, that make the model nonsmooth and cause problems for conventional optimisers, the Premium Solver Platform can automatically transform your model to an equivalent form that replaces these functions with additional variables and linear constraints. You simply check a box to "Solve Transformed Model" and click Solve -- the Polymorphic Spreadsheet Interpreter does the work of an expert operations research analyst and transforms your model into one that can be solved faster and more reliably.