The distributed compute works through a controller node and compute nodes. The compute node needs to be set up in a slightly different way than the controller nodes. This configuration set defines the compute node configurations.

The Distributed Compute package can be downloaded HERE.  You will want to download Overlay-WAT1.1.7z. This is the same package that is used for the controller node. If you have already downloaded this file, you can skip this step.

Program Setup

The distributed compute package downloaded only provides supplemental files that are needed for distributed compute. You will still need to set up your Controller and Compute Nodes with HEC-WAT and perform additional steps to set up.

If you have already setup up your controller node, you can copy your C:\Programs file and all of it's contents straight to your compute node to the same location. If you take this approach, you need to make sure that you update your HEC-WAT.config file so that line 77 (vmparam -Djava.rmi.server.hostname=127.0.0.1) is active again otherwise the DC will fail. If you take this approach, you can skip Steps 1-6 below.


  1. Under your C Drive, create a folder called Programs (if it does not already exist).
  2. Within Programs, unzip your HEC-WAT package.
    Location where HEC-WAT Package should be unzipped

  3. Unzip Overlay-WAT1.1.7z. Copy the contents within (HEC-WAT and DC folders) and paste them in C:\Programs.
    Contents of Overlay-WAT1.1.7z

  4. Navigate to C:\Programs\HEC-WAT\HEC-WAT and open the following config editors in a text editor
    1. HEC-WAT-controller.config
    2. HEC-WAT.config
  5. Copy the contents from HEC-WAT-controller.config and paste them at the bottom of the HEC-WAT.config file.
  6. Save and close the config file. 

  7. Navigate to C:\Programs\HEC-WAT\HEC-WAT\ignite and right-click computenode.bat and select Send to - Desktop (create shortcut).
  8. To streamline running HEC-WAT, recommend navigating to C:\Programs\HEC-WAT\HEC-WAT and creating desktop shortcuts for HEC-WAT.exe and WatTaskList.exe.

    You should also created a desktop shortcut for out.log; however, that will not be available until after you launch the computenode.bat. Once you launch the computenode.bat, go to C:\Users\HEC\AppData\Local\Temp, right click on out.log and select Send to - Desktop (create shortcut)

  9. Last, HEC-RAS is not an executable and needs to be installed. HEC-WAT 1.1 uses HEC-RAS 6.5. The setup package can be downloaded from HERE.