The 9th BOINC Workshop

A workshop on BOINC and volunteer computing will be held 25-27 September 2013 in Grenoble, France.

The objective of this workshop is to share information about BOINC and projects using it, through 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:

• BOINC on Android
• GPU, multi-thread, VM-based, and Android applications
• Data-intensive applications
• Multi-user projects
• Remote job submission
• 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.

Registration

The workshop is free but attendance is limited. If you are interested in attending, or have any questions, please contact David Anderson, indicating your areas of interest and your dates of arrival and departure.

Please, also fill the following ​Doodle that helps us keeping track of participants.

Venue

​Inria Grenoble - Rhône-Alpes Inovallée 655 avenue de l'Europe - Montbonnot 38334 Saint Ismier Cedex

Tel. +33 (0)4 76 61 52 00

​Inria on Google Maps

Schedule

The workshop will consist of two activities:

• Talks: All participants are encouraged to give a short (~20 min) talk describing their activities and plans related to volunteer computing. These talks do not have to be polished, or present results. Please send your talk title to David Anderson.

• Hackfest: On the 2nd and 3rd days of the workshop we'll divide into groups, to hack, document, discuss or learn some aspect of BOINC. Please come with ideas.

Tues 24 Sept

David Anderson will be at INRIA with Arnaud, available for talking/helping/hacking.

Wed 25 Sept

9:30 Opening remarks (Arnaud and David)

9:45-11:00 David Anderson: BOINC status and plans

coffee break

11:15 - 12:45 talks

• Andy Bowery
• Christian and Uwe
• Jozsef Kovacs
• Nils Høimyr
• Wenjie Fang: "BOINC Volunteer Community in Mainland China" and/or "Parallelizing large search in BOINC: a case study"

lunch (INRIA cafeteria)

14:00-15:30 talks

• Mark McAndrew
• Kevin Reed
• Wenjing Wu
• Tristan Olive: BOINC/Drupal integration

coffee break

15:45-17:15 talks

• Matt Blumberg: GridRepublic and Progress Thru [sic] Processors status report
• Dario Ferrer
• Joachim Fritzsch: "BOINC on Android: state & outlook"
• Francisco Sanz Garcia

Thu 26 Sept

9:00 - 12:45

• Finish talks if needed
• organize hackfest

coffee break at 11:00

lunch (INRIA cafeteria)

14:00-17:30

• hackfest

coffee break at 15:30

Evening: workshop dinner (venue TBA)

Friday 27 Sept

Same schedule as Thursday, except:

15:45-17:30

• hackfest group presentations
• discussion: future directions for BOINC
• concluding remarks

Sat 28 Sept

All day: hike in the mountains; details TBD. Bring hiking boots.

Hackfest topics

• Making app versions for Android
• Remote job submission: unification
• Scheduling: batches and user quotas
• Make project web sites translatable
• Prototype a BOINC GUI using HTML5
• Improving the BOINC server documentation
• Creating and deploying VM-based app versions
• How to automate the end-to-end testing of BOINC?
• Replacing the heartbeat mechanism, and other improvements to the client/app interface
• Drupal/BOINC tutorial
• Further simplifying the BOINC install process and GUI

Attendees (tentative)

1. Tolu Aina, Oxford
2. David Anderson, UC Berkeley
3. Uwe Beckert, ​http://Rechenkraft.net
4. Christian Beer, ​http://Rechenkraft.net
5. Gerdus Benade, Stellenbosch University
6. Matt Blumberg, GridRepublic
7. Andy Bowery, Oxford Univ.
8. Wenjie Fang, Université Paris Diderot
9. Dario Ferrer, Univ. of Westminster
10. Joachim Fritzsch, MPI
11. Bruno Gaujal, INRIA
12. Francisco Sanz Garcia, BIFI
13. Jozsef Kovacs, SZTAKI
14. Arnaud Legrand, INRIA
15. Mark McAndrew, Charity Engine
16. Tristan Olive
17. Kevin Reed, IBM
18. Fermin Serrano Sanz, U. Zaragoza
19. Rytis Slatkevicius
20. Keith Uplinger, IBM
21. Adam Visegradi, SZTAKI
22. Wenjing Wu, IHEP/CAS
23. Nils Høimyr or TBA, CERN

Transportation

From Grenoble: by bus and bus

​Grenoble Express Line from Grenoble and stop at Pré de l'eau stop. Then take ​bus number 6070 and stop at Inria.

From Grenoble: by tram then bus

Take tram B to the Grenoble university campus ("Bibliothèque" stop) then ​bus 6070 (in direction of "Pré de l'eau") to the "Inria" stop.

By air

You have a choice between the Lyon-Saint-Exupéry or Geneva-Cointrin airports.

Lyon Saint Exupéry is an international airport served by most airlines. At the airport, you can take a shuttle to the Grenoble bus station (around 60 minutes) or the high-speed train to the Grenoble station. Geneva-Cointrin is an international airport in Switzerland. From Geneva, you can take the train to Grenoble (around two and a half hours).

By train

From Paris, you can take the Paris "Gare de Lyon" high-speed train to Grenoble (approximately three-hour trip).

By car

From the Lyon-Saint Exupéry airport (or from Lyon), take the A43 in the direction of Chambéry-Grenoble then the A41 towards Grenoble. Then, upon arriving in Grenoble, follow the A41 towards Chambéry and take exit 25 for Montbonnot. Then, follow the signs for Inria then for Inria parking. Inria's main entrance is located in the middle of the building between two small ponds.

By taxi from Grenoble

A taxi from central Grenoble (or the station) will cost around 20 euros. Depending on the traffic, the trip to Inria will take 15-30 minutes. Taxi Transialpes: +33 (0)4 76 71 67 02 By tram/bus from Grenoble

Accommodations

Hotel des alpes (​http://www.hotel-des-alpes.fr/) is well located in the center of Grenoble and we can book rooms at a "discount" rate (keyword is INRIA BOINC workshop but you should register before 25 August) for 62€ (instead of 65).

You can find a range of hotel options on ​http://booking.com.