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"http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/loose.dtd">
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<title>Introduction to BOINC</title>
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<meta name="generator" content="BBEdit 6.1.2">
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<h2>Introduction to BOINC</h2>
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<p>
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Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) is a
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software platform for public-participation distributed computing
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projects like distributed.net and SETI@home. BOINC supports applications
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that can be divided into large parallel parts with few data
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dependencies; it is not presently intended for fine-grained parallel
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applications.
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</p>
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<p>
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The features of BOINC include:
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li>
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<b>Multiple Independent Projects</b>
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<br>
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BOINC allows multiple independent projects to share
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participants. Participants download a single <b>core client</b> program,
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which in turn downloads and executes project-specific executables.
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Participants can control how their resources are divided among the
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projects and which projects they participate in. Participants may also
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control how many applications are running at once, thereby taking
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advantage of multiple CPU systems. Since the projects are independent,
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any downtime for one project will merely result in temporary extra
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processing power for another.
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<br>
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<br>
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</li>
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<li>
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<b>Comprehensive Security</b>
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<br>
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All file transfers to the host computer are validated with an
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MD5 checksum, and all executable files are signed with RSA
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public/private key encryption (1024 bit default). See the <a
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href="security.html">security</a> page for more details.
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<br>
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<br>
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</li>
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<li>
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<b>Host Work Caching</b>
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<br>
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The BOINC core client will download enough work to keep the host
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busy for a user specifiable amount of time. This will allow the client
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to continue to function during project downtimes, as well as decrease
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the frequency of connections to servers.
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<br>
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<br>
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</li>
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<li>
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<b>Multiple Platform Support</b>
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<br>
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The BOINC core client can run on almost any platform (Mac OS X,
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Windows 95 and later, Linux and other Unix systems) and provides OpenGL
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based graphics support on Mac OS X, Windows 95 and up, and X Windows.
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<br>
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<br>
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</li>
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<li>
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<b>Multiple Server Support</b>
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<br>
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The BOINC architecture supports multiple scheduling and data
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servers. If one server is temporarily unavailable, clients will
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automatically try alternate servers. If all servers are unavailable,
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clients will perform random exponential backoff to avoid flooding the
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server.
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<br>
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<br>
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</li>
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<li>
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<b>Open Source</b>
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<br>
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BOINC is fully open source and is distributed under the Mozilla
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Public License version 1.0. Under this license, projects that utilize
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BOINC are not required to release the source code of their project
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specific applications, though they are encouraged to do so. This means
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BOINC is well suited for private, commercial, or public distributed
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computing projects.
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<br>
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<br>
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</li>
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<li>
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<b>Support for Large Data Computations</b>
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<br>
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BOINC supports applications that produce or consume large
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amounts of data (on the order of gigabytes). It allows data distribution
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and collection to be spread across many servers, and it allows
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participant hosts to do large data transfers unobtrusively. Users are
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able to specify maximum storage usage so that BOINC doesn't fill up
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their disk. BOINC also handles network disconnections and allows
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user-specifiable network bandwidth restrictions.
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<br>
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<br>
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</li>
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<li>
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<b>Extreme Resource Requirement Support</b>
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<br>
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BOINC supports applications with extreme requirements for
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memory, disk, cache or other resources. Work is dispatched only to hosts
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able to handle it.
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<br>
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<br>
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</li>
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<li>
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<b>Application Program Interface</b>
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<br>
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An Application Program Interface (API) is provided to
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application developers to ease integration with BOINC. See the <a
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href="api.html">API page</a> for details.
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<br>
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<br>
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</li>
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<li>
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<b>Support for Applications in any Language</b>
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<br>
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BOINC applications can be developed in any language (C++,
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Fortran, Perl). An application can consist of several files (e.g.
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multiple programs and a coordinating script). New versions of
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applications can be deployed without requiring participants to download.
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2002-07-23 22:24:59 +00:00
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2002-07-29 19:01:38 +00:00
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<br>
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<br>
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</li>
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<li>
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<b>Web Based User and Administrative Interfaces</b>
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<br>
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A set of PHP scripts is included to provide interfaces for user
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and administrative tasks. These include preference editing, account
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creation and user information display.
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<br>
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<br>
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</li>
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<li>
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<b>Database and Server Architecture</b>
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<br>
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BOINC provides a SQL schema, database functions, a simple server
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architecture, web based user interfaces and server administration tools.
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Each project must provide and maintain its own server systems and
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backend result processing but these systems can be set up easily and
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require only open-source components (MySQL, PHP, Apache, and Linux). The
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BOINC scheduling server also supports FastCGI for enhanced server
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performance.
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</li>
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2002-07-23 22:24:59 +00:00
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</ul>
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2002-07-29 19:01:38 +00:00
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</body>
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</html>
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