world community grid (wcg) advancing humanitarian research through a combined computing effort

World Community Grid (WCG)

Advancing humanitarian research through a combined computing effort.

World Community GridPresentation Outline

My introduction to volunteer computing What is Volunteer Computing Why participate? World Community Grid project BOINC client installation Managing BOINC Security concerns Conclusion

WatITis | Making the Future | December 2, 2008 | World Community Grid

World Community Grid- My introduction to it

Requested to test by Martin Timmerman mid-2006 Group director of CSS (Computing Systems Services) Relationship with IBM Asked me to research the feasibility in our training labs Test deployment Nov 2006 Install required much tweaking, documenting Full deployment early 2007 Been in ever since, through every term re-install


What is Volunteer Computing- The basics

Volunteer computing is: The creation of a very large supercomputer-like structure Local management client, remote project servers You provide CPU, RAM and HD to process tasks Tasks run during idle time (System Idle Process) User management client contacts project servers User gets “credits” once completed tasks verified by a quorum All public grid computing projects are volunteer


What is Volunteer Computing- Why participate?

This is the crux of the talk Many people join because of a personal connection or loss

Cancer, AIDS, Muscular Dystrophy

Very direct method of aiding in research Like donating to a Society Very cost effective Do get an incentive through “points” from the projects Just like volunteering for a non-profit, some training

needed But do not expect immediate or direct results, this is only

a small part of a bigger chain.


What is Volunteer Computing- Project issues

Issues all projects must deal with: Tasks should not interfere with perceived performance The volunteer user is anonymous and essentially unaccountable High user turnover Client & task must operate on very different hardware and OS’s Unstable systems produce bad results, thus quorum agreement

Overclocking Bad RAM or other components

Malicious users claim inflated credits, or worse… Some intentionally produce bad results.


What is Volunteer Computing- Downsides to volunteering

Some downsides to volunteer computing More power usage and associated costs Increased system uptime Small performance hits, but minimal on contemporary hardware

CPU cache contention RAM limitations and paging Internal bus and external network contention

Local client requires periodic maintenance Learning to troubleshoot issues


What is Volunteer Computing- Early Grid Computing projects

Early projects GIMPS in 1996 (Mersenne Primes) DISTRIBUTED.NET in 1997 (RSA key cracking) SETI@HOME in 1999 (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) FOLDING@HOME in 2000 (Protein Folding)

Custom clients (SETI) Did the entire job: task management, communication, screen

saver, etc. Cannot update the task separate from the client


What is Volunteer Computing- United Devices Client

United Devices (UD) GRID client Started development in 1999 Set up to "demonstrate the viability and benefits of large-scale

Internet-based grid computing” Shut down in 2007 after UD felt it had completed its mandate Had many issues, especially on emerging hardware

Limited config, registry edits required for many options Limited installation scenarios Limited to Windows No hyperthread or multi-CPU support No viewable/editable user settings file No mass deployment option

No new client ever materialized


What is Volunteer Computing- BOINC Client

BOINC Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing Started in 2002 to support Seti@home (also from Berkeley) Open-source project, very active development

Led by David Anderson, who runs Seti@home

Addressed almost all the issues with UD Hyper-thread and multi-CPU support Multi-platform: Windows, MAC OSX and Linux versions XML (editable/viewable) user settings files Many install scenarios Still not simple to mass deploy


What is Volunteer Computing- Other BOINC projects

Some other BOINC projects, of the 27: seti@home spinhenge@home Einstein@home Climateprediction.net Chess960@home Malariacontrol.net rosetta@home


World Community Grid - Introduction

Mission statement To create the world’s largest public computing grid to tackle

projects that benefit humanity. Mostly humanitarian in focus: medical, climate change, drug

development and food research.

IBM initiative IBM supported and funded, runs on IBM hardware Partnered with United Devices to develop the client Launched Nov 16, 2004 First project was Human Proteome Folding Phase 1


World Community Grid - Statistics

Presently, WCG has almost 400 partners Over 411,000 users Over 21,000 teams Over 1,000,000 registered devices (somewhat inflated) Some of the largest partners or teams:

Marist College Rochester Community and Technical College (RCTC) Slashdot Users Easynews Users


World Community Grid - UW Team

“University of Waterloo” team Created Nov 17, 2004 Team ranks #62 with over 110,000,000 points IST joined Nov 10, 2006 Library systems joined March 3, 2007 Many other individuals


World Community Grid - Projects

The WCG projects (all states): Nutritious Rice for the World Help Conquer Cancer Discovering Dengue Drugs Human Proteome Folding Phase 2 FightAIDS@home AfricanClimate (inactive) Help Cure MD (inactive) Genome Comparison (completed) Help Defeat Cancer (completed) Human Proteome Folding phase 1 (completed)


BOINC Client Installation- Pre-install Check

1. Get a login to WCG Required to get software and authenticate local BOINC client to

WCG site

2. Where to install the software Many factors affect this decision: Computer on all the time, hard disk protection, file systems,

private or public workstation

3. How to install Casual vs power user Desktop vs laptop system


BOINC Client Installation - The Install

Install BOINC Very basic installer Select your install folders Choose your operating options Reboot

Setup BOINC for WCG project Select project (WCG) Enter credentials Machine is part of DEFAULT group


BOINC Client- Managing & Maintaining

Adjusting options Local settings override WCG site settings

CPU% CPU & power supply stress & heat output Power usage & costs 60% a good number Very non-granular control of the CPU, large on/off slices measured in seconds

# of CPU’s. More CPU’s used means more heat & RAM needed

RAM limits XP vs VISTA, 1Gb vs 2Gb machines, RAM paging, “keep in memory” option

Task queue How often is the network down? 10 day limit


BOINC Client- Managing & Maintaining

Monitoring tasks BOINC is quite independent, but still needs monitoring Task errors Problematic machines Tasks being returned in time Viewing the graphics


BOINC Client - Managing & Maintaining

BOINC updates Data migration between BOINC versions Task data retention between OS re-images and re-installs The registry holds no important keys for BOINC

Limited deployment options (MSI, imaging) Can’t deploy in an image Can deploy via MSI, but tricky

WCG website Default & group configuration settings Grouping machines


BOINC Client - Security Concerns

Service install BOINC runs all the time V6 uses account-based sandboxing BOINC runs as USER in its own account App/data folders protected on NTFS, not FAT32 Public workstation concerns

No unsolicited communication from project servers Remote management using RPC Third-party BOINC clients

BOINC trojans


World Community Grid- Closing Comments

Very little UW exposure so low uptake. No advertising, no education campaign Another app to package, deploy and manage Limited mass deployment options

A competitive sport Bleeding edge hardware Team competitions

WCG & BOINC websites & forums WCG e-mail newsletter


Questions?

Hmmm…


world community grid (wcg) advancing humanitarian research through a combined computing effort

Documents

world community grid

world community grid

public grid computing

volunteer watitis

basics volunteer computing

client watitis

network computing

computing downsides