Introduction to Grid Computing & BOINC testing
The goal of grid computing is for a large number of combined machines giving their spare CPU time to work on tasks from various projects. The CPU will work on tasks sent to it from whatever project has been attached, and return the results when they are done. There are a large number of projects in existance, with more being started.
The goal of the World Community Grid is to help humanity in tackling, as a combined front, large humanitarian-based scientific computing tasks which require massive amounts of computing resources. In return for allowing your machine to be used for such tasks, you gain “points” and “ranking” in the grid community. The more machines and resources you give to the grid, the better your returns. Points are awarded based on your CPU speed (based on a benchmark run before each work unit starts), installed RAM and how much hard disk you are willing to dedicate to work units. The more of each one you reserve for grid use, the better your points earned (to a limit).
Most of the experimentation done was to find the right combination of installation options, after-install modifications of the software, and WCG site configuration changes to make the software function within our specific environmental requirements. Copious notes were taken along the way. Our main requirement was to prevent adverse effects to logged-in users (i.e. slow down the PC) but allow the grid software complete CPU access when nobody was logged in.
The reason for this site is simple: some of the information presented here was not easy to find, some required much digging on the WCG or BOINC home site, and some was simply not available. Every attempt has been made to present details accurately and fairly, but everything here is from one person's experience.
The WCG and BOINC websites are a wealth of information for configuration, troubleshooting and statistics. You can configure each individual machines or groups of machines to different work schedules, allowing only specific tasks, etc. It contains discussion forums for when troubles come up, and it maintains statistics on almost everything imaginable regarding task results for not only your machine, but teams, etc.
These BOINC pages are based on testing which followed our initial UD agent tests. The UD agent had too many caveats and limitations to suit our environmental needs, and BOINC appeared to address most of them. The initial tests were done with BOINC v5.7.5 (a beta test release), and was upgraded along the way as new versions came out. Newer or alternate versions will likely have different features than are outlined here.
BOINC is an open-source grid application started and supported by the University of California at Berkeley. It is used by most grid projects, and was adopted by WCG about 2 years ago (2005-2006). Unlike the UD agent, BOINC is a continual state of development, with new releases appearing quite frequently.
Like UD, BOINC was initiall installed on a few stations, and finally moved into our training labs, replacing the UD install on each machine. The testing phase for BOINC was much shorted than that for UD, since it functions in a similar way to UD. BOINC has always been installed as a Windows service, and none of the other installation options have been tested. The main testing with BOINC has been WCG site-based, playing with configuration options to find the best combination for us.
Email the author: Peter Schepers | Last updated: Mar 1, 2007