Changes between Version 1 and Version 2 of WhyUseBoinc

Timestamp:

Jun 6, 2008, 3:17:52 PM (16 years ago)

Author:

davea

Comment:

--

WhyUseBoinc

@@ -1 +1 @@
 = Why use BOINC? =
 
-Volunteer and desktop grid computing
+Use BOINC if you need lots of cheap computing power.
+BOINC lets you access two classes of computing resources:
+
+ * The desktop PCs owned by your organization ([DesktopGrid Desktop Grid computing]);
+ * PCs volunteered by the general public ([VolunteerComputing Volunteer computing]).
 
 == Cost comparison ==
 
+Suppose you need a lot of computing power - say, 100 TeraFLOPS for 1 year.
+Here are some ways you can get it:
+
+ '''Use Amazon's Elastic Computing Cloud''' : $175 Million :: Based on $0.10 per node/hour.
+ '''Build a cluster: $12.4 Million''' :: This includes power and air-conditioning infrastructure, network hardware, computing hardware, storage, electriciy, and sysadmin personnel.
+ '''Use BOINC: $125,000''' :: based on the average throughput and budget of the 6 largest volunteer computing projects.
+
 == What's the catch? ==
+
+To get lots of computing power this way, you'll need to do some unusual things:
+
+ * Publicize and promote your project, on the web and if possible in the media.
+ * Devote some resources to managing and communicating with your volunteer community.
+ * Get your applications to run on a wide range of computer types.
 
 == What applications can BOINC handle? ==
 
+BOINC works best with "bag of task" computations -
+large sets of independent jobs - with modest memory and storage requirements.
+Typical applications include:
+
+ * Simulations of physical systems
+ * Compute-intensive analysis of large data sets
+ * Exploration of large search spaces (including genetic algorithm).
+
+BOINC doesn't require you to rewrite your applications.
+You can even use existing executables without source code.
+
 == Organizational possibilities ==
 
-individual (Primegrid, chess960)
-                scientist (CPDN)
-                consortium (LIGO)
-                organization (CERN)
-                umbrella organization (WCG)
-                VCSC
+If you're part of an organization such as a university,
+you should consider the various organizational levels
+at which BOINC can be used.
+There is an overhead in creating and maintaining a BOINC project,
+and it can be advantageous to amortize this overhead
+across multiple scientists.
+Some possibilities:
+ Individual :: Some projects (Primegrid, chess960) are run by private individuals.
+ Scientist :: Most current projects are run by individual scientists or research groups.
+ Consortium :: Einstein@home is run by a multi-university research consortium (LIGO).
+ Application-centered academic community :: Mindmodeling.org serves researchers from about 20 universities who all use the same application (the ACT-R cognitive modeling system).
+ Research institute :: LHC@home servers multiple groups at CERN
+ Umbrella organization :: IBM World Community Grid handles applications from ~8 different research groups.
+ Campus-level project :: This would provide a [http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/VirtualCampusSupercomputerCenter Virtual Campus Supercomputing Center]; there are no examples yet.