Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing
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The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) is a distributed computing infrastructure intended to be useful to fields beyond SETI. This software platform is open in that it is free and open source software released under the GNU Lesser Public License. Currently BOINC is being developed by a team based at the University of California, Berkeley led by David Anderson, the project director of SETI@home - a project which uses this software.
SETI@home is one of the better known projects that utilizes the BOINC distributed platform. The success of SETI@home—which after its launch in 1999 quickly became the most powerful computing network ever assembled—made it clear that distributed computing could be used for many other computing-intensive scientific projects. The intent of BOINC is to make it possible for researchers in areas as diverse as molecular biology, climatology, and astrophysics to tap into the enormous but under-utilized calculating power of personal computers world-wide. In essence BOINC is software that can use the unused CPU cycles on a computer, to analyse scientific data—what you don't use of your computer, it uses.
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Design and structure of BOINC
BOINC is designed to be a free structure for anyone wishing to start a distributed computing project. Most BOINC projects are considered to be nonprofit and rely heavily, if not completely, on volunteers. However, this does not mean BOINC cannot be used for profit. BOINC consists of a server system and client software that communicate with each other to distribute, process, and return work units.
Server structure
The major parts include the backend server, which can be run on one or many machines to allow BOINC to be easily scalable to projects of any size. BOINC servers run on Linux based computers and use Apache, PHP, and MySQL as a basis for its web and database systems. BOINC is simply the structure for distributing work and does no useful scientific work itself. Scientific computations are run on user computers and results are analyzed after they are validated and transferred from BOINC into a scientific database. BOINC servers also provide advanced features including homogonous redundancy (sending work units only to computers of the same platform), work unit trickling (sending information to the server before the work unit completes), and locality scheduling (sending work units to computers that already have the necessary files and creating work on demand).
Client structure
The client structure is a tiny application that manages the work on computers attached to BOINC projects. Any given computer can be attached to as many BOINC projects as possible allowing users to participate in multiple types of research. The BOINC client is responsible for the downloading and uploading of work. Additionally, the BOINC manager is responsible for dividing the time spent working on each project according to user preferences. The BOINC client is not capable of automatically updating itself for security reasons but science applications are automatically downloaded and updated once a computer is attached to a project. This allows scientists to easily release and distribute new software to the participants without intervention.
BOINC Credit System
Main Article:BOINC Credit System
Projects using BOINC
Current projects
- SETI@home—Website (http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/)
- Climateprediction.net—Website (http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/)
- Predictor@home—Website (http://predictor.scripps.edu/)
- Einstein@Home—Website (http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/)
- LHC@home—Website (http://lhcathome.cern.ch/)
Projects under development
- Pirates@Home—Website (http://pirates.vassar.edu/) (part of Einstein@home)
- BURP—Website (http://burp.boinc.dk/) (Pre-Alpha)
- Folding@home—Website (http://fah-boinc.stanford.edu/) (Beta)
Future projects
- Astropulse—Website (http://www.setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/setifuture.html#astropulse)
- The Lattice Project—Website (http://lattice.umiacs.umd.edu/boinc/)
- PlanetQuest—Website (http://www.planetquest.org/)
References
- Vance, Ashlee. (2003). Sun and UC Berkeley are about to BOINC. Retrieved December 18, 2003 from http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/61/34570.html.
See also
External links
- Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/)
- BOINC users and teams statistics (http://www.boincstats.com/) (daily updated)
- Unofficial optimized BOINC clients for Linux (http://boinc.us.tt)
- Unofficial BOINC Owner's Manual, Unofficial BOINC Web Site Owner's Manual, FAQ, Glossary, and more ... (http://boinc-doc.net/index.php)de:Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing
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