The 6th BOINC Workshop

A workshop on BOINC and volunteer computing will be held 31 Aug - 1 Sept 2010, in London.

The objective of this workshop is to share information about BOINC and projects using it, through short presentations and informal discussions, in a relaxed, open and friendly atmosphere. The workshop aims to stimulate new developments and activities related to volunteer computing, and to guide the future development of BOINC.

The workshop is for researchers, scientists and developers with significant experience or interest in BOINC. Areas of interest include:

• GPU and multi-thread applications; CUDA and OpenCL
• Virtual machines as application container
• Applications
• Scheduling
• Workflows
• Integration with hubs, clouds, grids, and desktop grids

All participants will have the opportunity to present and discuss their work. Slides will be published on the web, but there will be no papers or proceedings.

The workshop is being held in conjunction with a ​Citizen Cyberscience Summit conference, to be held in the same location on 2-3 Sept. BOINC workshop attendees are encouraged to attend the CC Summit as well. There will be a small charge for the CC Summit conference; let me know if you are interested in attending.

Venue

The workshop will be held at ​King's College London, Strand Campus in the ​Anatomy Theatre and Museum.

Registration

The workshop is free but attendance is limited. If you are interested in attending, or have any questions, please email David Anderson|k=01o5RAw95mV48kf6x-NVERig==&c=RSUgx-KG3aii0O1aEHoRwV0obvhd9SciJkpE21FkRJ0=)?, indicating your areas of interest.

Talks

All participants are encouraged to give a short (~20 min) talk describing their work with BOINC. Please send your talk title to me (David Anderson). A video projector will be available. Let me know if you need anything else.

Accommodations

Stamford Street Apartments :

Rooms are single and en-suite and cost £41.50 per person per night. Stamford Street Apartments are located in Waterloo in central London. This is just south of the river Thames in Zone 1. It's a perfect location if you are travelling by Eurostar, and if it's contemporary London you're looking for then the South Bank Arts Complex is right on your doorstep. You can't get more central than this residence! Guests also have access to the on site student shop, cafeteria, and gymnasium (payable locally).

​http://www.kcl.ac.uk/about/structure/admin/facser/facilities/conbro/accom/ssa.html

To book, please contact the reservations team on +44 (0)20 7848 1700 or email stopover@…

[UK footnote: the Stamford Street brochure is no longer accurate regarding Eurostar train services. They now use St. Pancras station, 1.5 miles north of the workshop venue, rather than Waterloo station]

Goodenough student rooms:

Prices: Visiting academics £40, Students £30 There are a very small number of student rooms available all year. Bathroom facilities are shared and meals can be taken in the Great Hall. In the summer there is much greater availability as permanent residents vacate the College.

For enquiries and to book please call +44 (0)20 7769 4727 or email: reservations@… ​http://www.goodenough.ac.uk/visitor_accommodation.html

Strand Palace Hotel:

£85 ​http://www.strandpalacehotel.co.uk/

Travelodge on Drury Lane:

£72.50 ​http://www.travelodge.co.uk/search_and_book/hotel_overview.php?hotel_id=318

The Fielding Hotel:

£90 ​http://www.thefieldinghotel.co.uk/

Goodenough Club:

£99 ​http://www.club.goodenough.ac.uk/

Swissotel

£125 ​http://www.swissotel.com/EN/Destinations/United+Kingdom/Swissotel+The+Howard/Hotel+Home/Hotel+Description

Attendees

(as of Aug 2)

Confirmed:

• Tolu Aina, Oxford
  • CPDN status report
• Issam Al-Azzoni, INRIA
  • Scheduling for Heterogeneous Desktop Grids
• Bruce Allen, MPI
• David Anderson, UC Berkeley
  • BOINC: The Year in Review
• Adam Bazinet, U. Maryland
  • The Lattice BOINC Project - Public Computing for the Tree of Life
• Uwe Beckert, ​Rechenkraft.net e.V.
  • The past and future of yoyo@home and Rechenkraft.net
• Christian Beer
• Oliver Bock, MPI
• Yu-Ting Chen, Academia Sinica
  • Puzzle@home: Finding the minimum number of sudoku clues
• Ad Emmen, AlmereGrid
  • The International Desktop Grid Federation
• Diogo Ferreira, U. of Coimbra, Portugal
  • Custom Execution Environments in BOINC
• Guillaume Gnaegi, Swiss Trop. Inst.
• Daniel Lombraña Gonzalez, U. Extremadura
  • Socializing BOINC
• Diggory Hardy, Swiss Trop. Inst.
• Torbjoern Klatt, ​Rechenkraft.net e.V.
• Benjamin Knispel, MPI
  • Update on E@H's search for radio pulsars
• Derrick Kondo, INRIA
  • Volunteer Computing in the Clouds
• Martin Korth, Cambridge
  • More quantum chemistry with BOINC
• Bernd Machenschalk, MPI
• Nicolas Maire, Swiss Trop. Inst.
  • malariacontrol.net: Status report
• Attila Marosi, SZTAKI Inst.
  • Remote validation of BOINC tasks
• Mark McAndrew, The Charity Engine
• Hien Nguyen, U. of Houston
  • Volpex/BOINC status report
• Thiago Presa, INRIA
• Kevin Reed, IBM
  • WCG status report
• Chris Reynolds, U. Westminster
  • Distributed Video Rendering using Blender, VirtualBox, and BOINC
• Alejandro Rivero, IberCivis
• Ben Segal, CERN (and 2 students?)
  • BOINC-VM and Volunteer Cloud Computing
• Fermin Serrano, Ibercivis
  • Overview of the Ibercivis project
• Rytis Slatkevičius
• Kieth Uplinger, IBM
• James Wanless
  • 3 Prime Tests, 3 Factorization Algorithms, and BOINC
• Zoltan Farkas, SZTAKI Inst.
  • Improved 3G Bridge scalability to support desktop grids

Probable:

• Magid Nikraz, College of Applied Sciences, Oman

Possible:

• Jaspal Subhlok, U Houston
• Jeremy Cowles, UC Berkeley

Schedule

Tuesday 31 August

9:00-10:30: welcome and talks

• BOINC: the year in review (David Anderson)

10:30-10:50 coffee

10:50-12:30 talks

• Update on E@H's search for radio pulsars (Benjamin Knispel)
• CPDN status report (Tolu Aina)
• The Lattice BOINC Project - Public Computing for the Tree of Life (Adam Bazinet)
• Distributed Video Rendering using Blender, VirtualBox, and BOINC (Chris Reynolds)

12:30-14:00 lunch (on your own; there's a cafeteria on-site)

14:00-15:30 talks

• WCG status report (Kevin Reed)
• More quantum chemistry with BOINC (Martin Korth)
• malariacontrol.net: Status report (Nicolas Maire)
• 3 Prime Tests, 3 Factorization Algorithms, and BOINC (James Wanless)
• Puzzle@home: Finding the minimum number of sudoku clues (Yu-Ting Chen)

15:30-15:45 coffee

15:45-17:15 talks

• Custom Execution Environments in BOINC (Diego Ferriera)
• BOINC-VM and Volunteer Cloud Computing (Ben Segal)
• Volunteer Computing in the Clouds (Derrick Kondo)

Wednesday 1 September

9:00-10:30: talks

• Overview of the Ibercivis project (Fermin Serrano)
• The past and future of yoyo@home and Rechenkraft.net (Uwe Beckert)
• Socializing BOINC (Daniel Gonzalez)
• International Desktop Grid Federation (Ad Emmen)

10:30-11:00 coffee break

11:00-12:30 talks

• Remote validation of BOINC tasks (Attila Marosi)
• Volpex/BOINC status report (Hien Nguyen)
• Improved 3G Bridge scalability to support desktop grids (Zoltan Farkas)
• Scheduling for Heterogeneous Desktop Grids (Issam Al-Azzoni)

12:30-14:00 lunch

14:00-15:30 parallel BOF sessions possible topics:

• VM apps
• Scheduling (batch completion, co-scheduling, adaptive replication)
• Volunteer issues (web interfaces, preferences, credit)
• Scientist adoption issues

15:30-16:00 coffee

16:00-17:00 BOF presentations and discussion

Hike

Traditionally the BOINC workshop has been followed by a rigorous full-day hike. This isn't feasible this year because of time and location. However, several of us plan to do a long walk in the Chiltern Hills near London on Monday 30 Aug. This will involve "rolling hills, pubs, historical stuff and more pubs". See also ​http://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/ridgeway/. Contact me (David Anderson) if interested.