Moving SETI@home to BOINC

Sir Ulli · Oct 7, 2003

found at Berkeley

We will soon release a new version of SETI@home, based on BOINC, a general-purpose platform for distributed computing projects like SETI@home. Eventually other distributed computing projects (like Folding@home and ClimatePrediction.net) will also use BOINC, and you'll be able to share your computer time among projects of your choosing.

BOINC makes it possible for us to release new versions of SETI@home without requiring you to download and install new software. It will also let us do new analyses of the SETI@home data, looking for other types of radio signals (such as short pulses from evaporating black holes).

Switching to SETI@home/BOINC will be easy:
# Create an account using the SETI@home web site. This will give you an account ID, sent by email. Note: accounts will created automatically for all current SETI@home users (see below).
# Download and install the BOINC client program when it becomes available.
# Uninstall SETI@home.
# When you first run the BOINC client, enter your SETI@home account ID.
Stages of the transition
We don't have an exact timetable yet, but the transition will be staged as follows:

1. We will make a snapshot of SETI@home user information (accounts, teams, profiles) and will use it to initialize the SETI@home/BOINC database. We will then launch the SETI@home/BOINC project.
2. Over the next month or so we will send email to all SETI@home users, giving them their new account IDs and recommending that they switch to BOINC. During this period you can continue to run the current SETI@home, and your results will be recorded and used. New SETI@home accounts and team changes can be made, but will not be carried over to BOINC.
3. We will turn off the current SETI@home server. At this point you will need to switch to SETI@home/BOINC.

What will happen to my workunit totals?

BOINC keeps track of your computer's work in terms of actual computation, not workunits. This is necessary because BOINC projects may have workunits of many different "sizes". Because of this change, all SETI@home/BOINC accounts will start with zero credit.

However, the workunit totals from the current SETI@home will be recorded in our database, and a section of our web site will show the final totals.
What will happen with SETI@home teams?

All current SETI@home teams, and their membership, will be copied over to SETI@home/BOINC. The work totals for teams will also start from zero.
What will happen with programs like SETIQueue and SETI Monitor?

These programs (which have been very useful with SETI@home Classic) won't work with SETI@home/BOINC. Their main function (buffering multiple work units) is provided by BOINC itself, which allows you to specify how much work your computer should get each time it contacts the server.
Will the format of input and output files change?

Yes. Programs which display information about the signals found in SETI@home work units will need to be modified to support the new (XML) data formats used by SETI@home/BOINC. Authors of such programs are encouraged to contact the SETI@home team for sample input and output files.

Linky

This will clear out many thinks, like Teams, Stats ....

Sir Ulli

Cy · Oct 7, 2003

I think this was expected by most of us. Change is change and we are all just along for the ride.

Cy

cooldrum3 · Oct 7, 2003

There will probably be a whole wave of new SETI users now. At least I have the honor of saying I was one of the first...June 11, 1999!

JigPu · Oct 7, 2003

I can't wait for SETI beta testing (or straight off SETI if Astropulse was designed to act as a kind of SETI beta) to begin

Hopefully the BOINC client won't be horribly slower than the 3.03 at the begining of the project.

JigPu

LandShark · Oct 7, 2003

JigPu said:
Hopefully the BOINC client won't be horribly slower than the 3.03 at the begining of the project.

JigPu

it sure will. as it will crunch a much large amount of data. and also to reduced the network congestion in berkeley (like before) by crunch long = less connection. i think TC said his top notch P4 (3.4-3.5ghz) need about double of the 3.03v's time.

TC · Oct 8, 2003

My P4C at 3400 takes about 5.5-6.5 hours per unit in atropulse.

Cuper · Oct 8, 2003

WOW!!! That means that it should take me about 10 hours per unit

I personally am excited about the change

Time to spice things up

LandShark · Oct 8, 2003

Cuper said:
WOW!!! That means that it should take me about 10 hours per unit I personally am excited about the change Time to spice things up

i don't wanna think how long it take for the PIII450 katmai even tho they have a lots of it.... i might just not install in them when it comes then (might not worth the power consumption)....

Jason Lewis · Oct 8, 2003

And there I was thinking that I had banished 12hr units forever when I upgraded from a PIII 600 to an Athlon XP2000+

Sir Ulli · Oct 8, 2003

from the mailing list

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2003 22:00:24 -0700
From: David Anderson <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Boinc-beta] missing download file bug

We may have fixed the problem that resulted in lots of
results being issued after their input files had already been deleted
(causing download failures).

Other project news:
- we're very close (and I mean it!) to releasing the Windows client
for SETI@home/BOINC.
- Some details of the planned transition to BOINC are described at
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/boinc_transition_plan.html
Please let me know if any comments/questions.
- We have someone working on a BOINC GUI client for Mac OS X.
It will look almost exactly like the Win GUI.

-- David

and something to clear up

the WU times in BOINC Astropulse are as TC mentioned 5 - 6 hours,

but BOINC Setiathome, has the same WUs as Setiathome classic, and the WU times will be also the same.

That are 2 different DC Projects.

Sir Ulli

Dk Jedi Allianc · Oct 8, 2003

Let me get it straigth -

1. Boinc is the platform
2. If accounts is created I can crunch either Astropulse or Seti II?
( in future perhaps folding as well)
3. I can configure my pc (boinc-client) to use 50% CPU-time on Astropulse and 50% on Seti II ?? (or 100% on Seti II

)

Is this about rigth????

JigPu · Oct 8, 2003

Sir Ulli said:
the WU times in BOINC Astropulse are as TC mentioned 5 - 6 hours,

but BOINC Setiathome, has the same WUs as Setiathome classic, and the WU times will be also the same.

That are 2 different DC Projects.

Sir Ulli

That's what I was getting at. My machine takes forever compared to SETI to finish an AP unit, but AP isn't SETI. Right now SETI has a specific time, and when they release it for BOINC, the time may remain the same (if they don't change the science or WU sizes), or could increase. I was hoping for option #1

JigPu

Sir Ulli · Oct 8, 2003

Dk Jedi Allianc said:
Let me get it straigth -

1. Boinc is the platform
2. If accounts is created I can crunch either Astropulse or Seti II?
( in future perhaps folding as well)
3. I can configure my pc (boinc-client) to use 50% CPU-time on Astropulse and 50% on Seti II ?? (or 100% on Seti II )

Is this about rigth????

yes that is right, you made the decision.

Sir Ulli

JigPu · Oct 8, 2003

Dk Jedi Allianc said:
Let me get it straigth -

1. Boinc is the platform
2. If accounts is created I can crunch either Astropulse or Seti II?
( in future perhaps folding as well)
3. I can configure my pc (boinc-client) to use 50% CPU-time on Astropulse and 50% on Seti II ?? (or 100% on Seti II )

Is this about rigth????

1. Yes, BOINC is the platform.
2. You create different accounts for different projects, and then add in each account to BOINC so it knows what you want to crunch.
3. That's the theory of BOINC. You should be able to share your CPU time however you want among several projects.

JigPu

KenCo · Oct 8, 2003

"BOINC keeps track of your computer's work in terms of actual computation, not workunits. This is necessary because BOINC projects may have workunits of many different "sizes". Because of this change, all SETI@home/BOINC accounts will start with zero credit."

So apparently it won't matter (in terms of team and individual stats) how long each workunit takes. It will just be a matter of how many cycles you devote to crunching.

Demont · Oct 8, 2003

KenCo said:
"BOINC keeps track of your computer's work in terms of actual computation, not workunits. This is necessary because BOINC projects may have workunits of many different "sizes". Because of this change, all SETI@home/BOINC accounts will start with zero credit."

So apparently it won't matter (in terms of team and individual stats) how long each workunit takes. It will just be a matter of how many cycles you devote to crunching.

Sounds interesting. I hope they will actually be able to calculate the computation in a meaningful, fair way.

bbdd · Oct 9, 2003

Sir Ulli said:
What will happen with programs like SETIQueue?
These programs (which have been very useful with SETI@home Classic) won't work with SETI@home/BOINC. The function of buffering multiple work units is provided by the BOINC client itself - you can specify how much work your computer should get each time it contacts the server.

Another function of SETIQueue - acting as a proxy for hosts that are not directly connected to the Internet - can be performed in BOINC by an HTTP 1.0 proxy such as Squid for Unix or FreeProxy for Windows.

this i do not like. i have many office machines running through a setiqueue and it sure helps to keep them all in line, not to mention collecting interesting stats. so in boinc, i will need to go to each machine individually to update how many units it should pull down? not likely, as i have acutal work to get done during the day. currently, for example, if the seti server is going down for maintenance, i just check the setiqueue to make sure enough is queued up to handle the downtime. two seconds and finished. i don't even have to leave my desk since i can access the setiqueue machine via the web interface.

i also have several machines that use the proxy function of setiqueue. for example, certain machines at work that are not allowed to have internet access can still get units to crunch off the lan rather than the net. i'm not going to go around and install another proxy program seperately for this.

this may draw some new users, but it will also push some old ones away who just don't want to mess with changing over a farm of machines. and if you can't farm it, what's the point?

maybe i just need some sleep, but i'm starting to not care anymore...

TC · Oct 9, 2003

Nobody said there wouldn't be some bumps in the road. Actually astropulse does a pretty good job. When it's first run it benchmarks the machine and uses that to judge what the system is capable of. It then downloads however many units it deems appropriate for several days worth of work on that system. As for the other concerns about stats collection and being able to proxy something - those are legit concerns and no immediate answers come to mind. Astropulse will keep running through its cache even if it can't upload results, but I don't know if it's possible to proxy the connection through another box. We all have questions at this point, and I'm sure we'll begin to find the answers as time goes by. As with anything new there will be some adjustment period.

cooldrum3 · Oct 9, 2003

Just give it time! Add on programs will come out, just like they did for Phase I. In the beginning of the project, all we had was the screensaver and plain old CLC! I think you're abandoning ship before we've hit the iceberg bbdd

.

Xtc4u · Oct 9, 2003

lemme guess for us SMP guys we'll still have to run 2 instances of the program to get ours at 100% usage.

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