AIMMS Knowledge Base Article - KB000053

How to link a solver to AIMMS

Summary

If you have license of a solver and your AIMMS license has the link to that solver, you can add that solver to your AIMMS. Currently, AIMMS provides links to the following solvers:

CPLEX
GUROBI
XPRESS
MOSEK
PATH
SNOPT
MINOS

Resolution

The general steps to link a solver to AIMMS are:

Have the solver license installed correctly; you should be able to run the solver stand-alone.
Copy the DLL file of the solver to the subdirectory 'Solvers' of AIMMS.
Start AIMMS, and in the 'Solver Configuration' dialog box (menu: Settings - Solver Configuration), add the solver.
Test if the solver is added correctly.

Specifically,

To link CPLEX to AIMMS:

Have the CPLEX license installed correctly; you should be able to run CPLEX stand-alone. This requires that the Environment Variable ILOG_LICENSE_FILE is set and refers to the file access.ilm (see iLog License Manager (User's Guide)).
Copy file cplex*.dll to the subdirectory 'Solvers' of AIMMS.
In the Solver Configuration dialog box (menu: Settings - Solver Configuration), add the CPLEX solver (libcpx*.dll).

To link GUROBI to AIMMS:

Have the GUROBI license installed correctly; you should be able to run GUROBI stand-alone.
Copy file gurobi*.dll to the subdirectory 'Solvers' of AIMMS.
In the Solver Configuration dialog box (menu: Settings - Solver Configuration), add the GUROBI solver (libgurobi*.dll).

To link XPRESS to AIMMS:

Have XPRESS license installed correctly; you should be able to run XPRESS stand-alone.
Copy the files xprl*.dll and xprs*.dll (from the XPRESS installation) to the subdirectory 'Solvers' of AIMMS.
Copy the XPRESS license file to the subdirectory 'Solvers' of AIMMS.
In the Solver Configuration dialog box, add the Xpress solver (libxo*.dll).

To link MOSEK to AIMMS:

Have MOSEK license installed correctly; you should be able to run MOSEK stand-alone. This requires that the Environment Variable MOSEKLM_LICENSE_FILE is set.
Copy files 'mosek*.dll', 'mosekglb*.dll' and libguide40.dll (MOSEK 5) / libiomp5md.dll (MOSEK 6 and higher) to the subdirectory 'Solvers' of AIMMS.
In the Solver Configuration dialog box, add the MOSEK solver (libmosek*.dll).

To link PATH to AIMMS:

Have the PATH license installed correctly; you should be able to run PATH stand-alone.
Copy file path*.dll to the subdirectory 'Solvers' of AIMMS.
In the Solver Configuration dialog box (menu: Settings - Solver Configuration), add the PATH solver (libpath*.dll).

To link SNOPT or MINOS to AIMMS:

In the Solver Configuration dialog box (menu: Settings - Solver Configuration), add the solver (libsnopt*.dll or libminos.dll). No solver DLL's have to be copied to the 'Solvers' directory for SNOPT and MINOS. These DLL's are already included in libsnopt*.dll and libminos.dll respectively.

Note:

In the typical installation of AIMMS not all solvers are installed. Please check the release notes of your AIMMS version to see whether you should run the typical or the complete AIMMS installation.
The MOSEK solver link is automatically provided with AIMMS Educational License Package.

More information

Please refer to this article if you get error message: "Could not initialize DLL", or contact us at support@aimms.com.

Last reviewed:	enshort
Keywords:	KB000053, solver link, CPLEX, GUROBI, XPRESS, MOSEK, PATH, SNOPT, MINOS