Submit TIMES models to GAMS Engine

[NicoKoenig]

Hei,

I am very new to the TIMES community so grateful for any support.

I use VEDA 2.0 as front end but have no local GAMS license. Instead, I send jobs to GAMS Engine. So I need to register my model at GAMS Engine before I can submit it. There, GAMS asks for the name of the main file (a .gms file). But my model has no gms files. It is just xlsx and json files. If I leave the "main file" field blank, GAMS auto-fills it with .gms and and when I submit a job, I get an error message saying that .gms (obviously) does not exist.

Does anyone know what the "main file" is for TIMES models?

Thanks a lot for any hints!
Nico

[rohit]

Hi NicoKoenig,

Please follow these steps:

1. Launch the GAMS Engine UI.
   


2. Navigate to the Namespaces tab.
   


3. Add model details with this screenshot. 
   


4. Upload the model zip file, downloaded times473.zip from here.
   


5. Save the name of the selected namespace as namespace and model name latest in Veda2.0 under Tools menu -> User Options -> Gams Engine.
   

Let me know if you find any issues.

[NicoKoenig]

Oh ok, so the folder I have is just the model description and input data. The actual GAMS code of TIMES is something different. I assume the times473.zip is identical with the GAMS_SrcTIMES.v4.7.3 folder that comes with Veda2.0?

[NicoKoenig]

So the run went through, which is good. But I don't seem to get any results. A colleague of mine, who has a local GAMS/CPLEX license, said that the results should be written to the GAMS_WrkTIMES folder in my VEDA directory. There is a new folder there, called "Lav" (which is my CaseName) - but there are no .vd files there. And when I open the Results module in VEDA, it finds nothing. Here is the run manager's output:

Code:

> Start
[create a bunch of .dd files]
Using user name: XXX account for Gams Engine
Creating zip file to submit to GamsEngine for case: Lav
Submitting job to GamsEngine for case: Lav
Waiting for job to complete for case: Lav
Downloading results for case: Lav
Importing files for case: Lav
Reading LST file @C:\VEDA\Veda\GAMS_WrkTIMES\Lav\lav.lst
Writing metadata
> Completed

The "Remove VD files" option is NOT ticked. Any idea where I can find the results?

[NicoKoenig]

We finally found the cause of the issue. I'll post it here if anyone later experiences the same problem:

GAMS Engine yields the model results as gdx files, which are incompatible with VEDA. When receiving results from GAMS Engine, VEDA tries to run a program called gdx2veda, to convert the results to VEDA format. This program comes with a GAMS installation, not with VEDA. So even though you run GAMS only in the cloud, you need a local installation (no local license needed, though).
https://www.gams.com/download/

You also need to make sure to add the GAMS directory to your PATH variable - best during installation of GAMS. Otherwise VEDA is not able to locate the gdx2veda program.

[Antti-L]

In the early days of VEDA, a stand-alone GDX2VEDA was distributed along with VEDA, and it could be executed locally without any GAMS installation. I wonder whether that might still be a feasible option, to make life easier for those that have no need for a full GAMS installation?