Peter's "World Community Grid" Support Site

Introduction to Grid Computing & UD 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 UD agent support pages are based on version 3.0 build 2844 of the World Community Grid UD Agent software (herein referred to as UD/WCG). Other versions, future or otherwise, will likely make much of the detail presented here obsolete or redundant.

These pages are the result of experimentation on a few select test machines, and later in a secured environment training lab. The testing phase for UD/WCG went in several stages, with each stage being about a week. During each phase the particular strengths and weaknesses of the mode were noted, along with caveats and limitations:

UD/WCG was installed on October 13, 2006, and tested on only a a few machines. When most of the install options where noted, the install moved into the training labs around November 10, 2006 and gradually was installed on all the machines. Each phase of the testing went about a week, with issues being noted and solutions sought.

The WCG testing was completed in early December 2006. A large number of issues and limitations were noted with the UD client and are documented in these pages. The BOINC install and testing then proceeded...

Email the author: Peter Schepers | Last updated: Mar 1, 2007