lets say holiday function?

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cabanossi

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Message 362603 - Posted: 10 Jul 2006, 17:59:00 UTC
Last modified: 10 Jul 2006, 18:55:19 UTC

Hi,

especially now the last days ive seen, that i miss one function: there should be a limiter in boinc, which one could set to download work just for approx. lets say 1 week, 3 days, or whatever the user wishes, before he goes for holidays, limitin the download of wu's to a level, which can be finished in the set time. ive tried that manually by not allowin more dl's of wu's since 2 days, but when i saw today, they were almost finished and still havin 4 days i allowed dl again. suddenly i saw like 20 or 30 wu's in the transfer qeue, which would have have been to much, so i needed to abort most dls manually.

another way could be to let the user define the time of his absence and dependin of that settin longer report deadlines.

such a "holiday function" would be much more comfortable and would make it possible to use the remainin cpu time before a longer absence more efficient.

greetings

cabanossi
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Message 362701 - Posted: 10 Jul 2006, 20:12:02 UTC

You can already set a local workunit cache of up to 10 days (exactly one week and three days). BOINC will automatically download what is needed to cover those ten days by calculation (dependant on computer speed and est. time to complete workunit).

By manually aborting downloads, you are only interrupting the BOINC scheduler. Simply set it and forget it. If it needs 20 or 30, that's what it's going to download. Don't micromanage BOINC - it's unncessary.

As for the user changing the report deadlines to fit around the user's schedule, dangerous idea. One user could change their deadline and hold up the whole quorum, thus preventing people from getting their due credit (which they already complain about not getting now because they don't understand the credit system), and also causing a potential tremendous backlog on the SETI servers, which could in turn cause their systems to become bogged down with trying to individually catch up with each user's extended deadlines.


I understand wanting to keep contributing to BOINC/SETI while on vacation (holiday as it's called in Europe), but I think the only reasonable suggestion would be to allow a higher WU cache of up to 20 days. If anyone is rich enough to afford longer vacations, they probably have always-on broadband and can simply let it run while they are gone without needing a WU cache. But they deadlines should most definately stay in the hands of the developers - not the users.
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Message 363129 - Posted: 11 Jul 2006, 3:07:13 UTC

I have thought about this a bit as well.

1) It would have to have a start and end date (or end date and duration) that BOINC (and presumably the machine) were turned off.

2) The servers would have to be updated to honor this gap in processing and not send any work that could not meet deadline because of the gap. (The servers are not even bright enough to pay attention to the current work load - much less to a vacation stop).

3) The CPU scheduler would have to pay attention to the gap, and the work fetch would have to pay attention.

I would like to see it, but there is some more urgent work on hand first.


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Message 363822 - Posted: 11 Jul 2006, 20:03:57 UTC
Last modified: 11 Jul 2006, 20:51:59 UTC

Thx McLeod,

u seem to have understood thx god the priciple idea: usin the remaining cpu time most efficient, without leavin wu's runnin over the dead line. but a start and end date wouldnt even be necessary i think. just the possibility to enter the date, from which ull be longer away. maybe also the time, but that would even make it more complicated than necessary i think.

based on the values, which is stored in every wu a user returns like:

- % of time BOINC client is running
- While BOINC running, % of time work is allowed
- Average CPU efficiency and
- Result duration correction factor

a pretty good prediction, how many wus can still be completed should be possible. this could be controlled by the boinc client i think. not necessarily the servers bein involved, except of more respectin the requested amount of work bein sent to the client, than i often saw it. or at least in the case, a longer absence is announced.

leavin runnin the machine wouldnt be the problem. the point is, that it sometimes hangs or even reboots, without that the machine would fully complete the boot process. except of that, with all my respect OzzFan1, i dont think its any of ur business, if i do have the money for longer holidays, vacations, or however u wanna call it, if or why i want to turn off my machine or whatever else.

McLeod, if there r more urgent things to be done first i dont want to judge about.

i just think, the idea is worth thinkin at least, and it shouldnt be so complicated to realize it in the way i just proposed.

thx for the thoughts in my idea.

greetings

caba
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Message 396445 - Posted: 13 Aug 2006, 14:00:22 UTC

I switched off my PC while I was away on holiday. When I returned and switched on, it was several days before I realised that the processing was wasted as all the results were too late. Would it not be possible to modify the client to not begin processing jobs for which the report deadline has already past? This should then just delete them and allow the existing sopftware to reload with new tasks which can contribute to the project.
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Message 396496 - Posted: 13 Aug 2006, 15:10:44 UTC - in response to Message 396445.  
Last modified: 13 Aug 2006, 15:12:06 UTC

I switched off my PC while I was away on holiday. When I returned and switched on, it was several days before I realised that the processing was wasted as all the results were too late. Would it not be possible to modify the client to not begin processing jobs for which the report deadline has already past? This should then just delete them and allow the existing sopftware to reload with new tasks which can contribute to the project.

This idea of automatically aborting WU is problematical.

examples:
One of the project made a huge underestimate of computing time of its new WU run. Few made the deadline even with Boinc going into panic mode to try to make the short deadline. The project extended deadlines at their end to accept all these late returns.
A similar problem occurred when Seti had an extra long maintenance problem and a week long recovery, they turned off the validation to allow for late reporting.

In both these cases thousands if not 100's of thousands of CPU hours would have been lost if Boinc had automatically aborted late WU.

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Message 396499 - Posted: 13 Aug 2006, 15:20:16 UTC

I'm not talking about aborting results that have been processed so nothing would be lost. Merely that the client should not BEGIN processing a task if the reporting deadline is already past. At the very least, why not a warning that the user can chose to delete any unprocessed tasks for which the reporting deadline had past. In that case, the end user could determine whether to continue processing or delete these tasks and load new ones knowing whether the cause is a problem at the SETI centre or their own PC.
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Message 396510 - Posted: 13 Aug 2006, 15:28:48 UTC

Automatic aborting of past due units is not a good idea. There are a couple of projcts that will still accept them after the due date. CPDN is one, and I think I heard of at least one more. Just not a smart idea.


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Message 398117 - Posted: 15 Aug 2006, 15:21:45 UTC

Here's an idea - how about changing the display in the BOINC Manager? If a work unit is already past its deadline, or seems as though it will go past its deadline even with earliest-deadline-first scheduling, then display the info on this workunit in red. This calls the users attention to the workunit, and they can assess for themselves whether or not they wish to abort the unit.
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Message 398163 - Posted: 15 Aug 2006, 16:35:23 UTC - in response to Message 396510.  

Automatic aborting of past due units is not a good idea. There are a couple of projcts that will still accept them after the due date. CPDN is one, and I think I heard of at least one more. Just not a smart idea.

Seti will accept units past the deadline, you just must get them in before the person that got the unit because you did not return it on time.

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Message 402241 - Posted: 20 Aug 2006, 17:44:12 UTC
Last modified: 20 Aug 2006, 17:51:18 UTC

hi,

im back from holidays, vacation, or however u wanna call it - dependin where u live or if u learned gringian or british anglish.

i in the mean time do it that way, that i set the project not to accept any tasks some days before i leave and then, when i return download and install the latest version, which has the additional effect, that i have the latest version runnin.

and the way, i often see users wishes or comments answered by some ppl i hate since a while. they seem to forget, who keeps this project runnin and that successfull as it is - the poor little stupid dummie they call user.

by the way - mixin in here some seti server maintainance problems is a completly different thing. its like we often say: comparin apples with bananas. and a function, as ive mentioned it would avoid wus runnin over the deadline.

but as i see, more ppl seem to want such a function, so it cant be such a bad idea.

greetz

caba

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Message 402414 - Posted: 20 Aug 2006, 23:33:06 UTC - in response to Message 402241.  

and the way, i often see users wishes or comments answered by some ppl i hate since a while. they seem to forget, who keeps this project runnin and that successfull as it is - the poor little stupid dummie they call user.


Well, you can't prevent them from answering questions, and they do have a right to speak their opinion on the idea - or their expertise on the question asked, as the case may be.

Though I can hardly imagine that these people you refer to "forget" that SETI is run by the "poor little stupid dummie's" of the world. I agree that some people could be a little more nice (and I feel I always am, unless someone speaks to me in a cross manor), but that goes with the territory.

Likewise, those "poor little stupid dummie's" should not forget that some people are only trying to help - and one cannot be helped while they are frustrated or angry, and taking it out on the helpers is not going to get you anywhere. If that person doesn't like the helper's help, then they can always choose to ignore it or ask for another opinion.

The pendulum swings both ways.

by the way - mixin in here some seti server maintainance problems is a completly different thing. its like we often say: comparin apples with bananas. and a function, as ive mentioned it would avoid wus runnin over the deadline.

but as i see, more ppl seem to want such a function, so it cant be such a bad idea.


So, you're saying "nya nya, I'm right, you're wrong"? ;-p Server maintenance is still a part of the equation. It's not about "comparing apples with bananas", but realizing all the parts of the equation helps.

Regardless, I don't know if you're referring to me or not, as I am the only one in the post that seems to have given a negative response on the idea, just because others like your idea, doesn't mean anything. There's other ideas that went into BOINC that I thought were unncessary too, but they still made it in there. In the end, we're all still entitle to our opinions. Or is that so hard to respect?
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Questions and Answers : Wish list : lets say holiday function?


 
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