Chaos at the Greasy Spoon (May 24 2007)

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Odysseus
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Message 576941 - Posted: 27 May 2007, 20:10:44 UTC - in response to Message 576923.  

More specifically, the minimum deadline for any project should be 10 days + the shortest WU deadline length.

Sorry, I don’t follow you. What’s the difference between “(minimum) deadline” and “(shortest) WU deadline length”?

Having a minimum deadline of slightly over ten days would make sense, ensuring that it would fall outside every client’s connection interval (‘hacked’ preferences aside, if that’s even possible). I don’t see why the excess needs to be any more than the time it takes to download a batch of work, though: something like 868,000 seconds ought to be plenty.

From the project’s POV shorter deadlines have the advantage of quicker turnaround of WUs that need to be reissued, getting them out of the working database sooner. That has to be balanced against the increased requesting/reporting traffic from clients that are unable to fill large caches.

Are any statistics available on the distribution of CI settings in the crunching population? Doubtless quite a few are still using the default of 0.1 day.

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Message 576985 - Posted: 27 May 2007, 21:22:38 UTC - in response to Message 576941.  
Last modified: 27 May 2007, 21:24:11 UTC

More specifically, the minimum deadline for any project should be 10 days + the shortest WU deadline length.

Sorry, I don’t follow you. What’s the difference between “(minimum) deadline” and “(shortest) WU deadline length”?


No difference. I don't understand what you are asking.

Having a minimum deadline of slightly over ten days would make sense, ensuring that it would fall outside every client’s connection interval (‘hacked’ preferences aside, if that’s even possible). I don’t see why the excess needs to be any more than the time it takes to download a batch of work, though: something like 868,000 seconds ought to be plenty.


Here is the logic BOINC uses:

http://boinc-wiki.ath.cx/index.php?title=Work_Buffer
A new work-request scheduler was introduced in v5.8.xx, using:
Computational deadline = report deadline - (Work Buffer size + 1 day + "switch between projects every N hours")
A Task is in deadline trouble if Computational deadline < 0.9 * report deadline
A Project even if only one task is in deadline trouble, is blocked from asking for work until not in deadline trouble any longer, or, atleast 1 cpu is out of work.


So I had it wrong. The minimum needs to be even longer. With a deadline of 14 days, the longest setting you can use for "connect" is just over 6 days. You still cannot get anything larger to work properly.
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Message 577004 - Posted: 27 May 2007, 21:56:40 UTC

More chaos has arrived! Been getting a report that no work is available for some time now. I guess once again when the work units I am processing now are finished then I will be idle until sometime tomorrow. Is anyone else experiencing this?
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Message 577008 - Posted: 27 May 2007, 22:10:46 UTC - in response to Message 577004.  

More chaos has arrived! Been getting a report that no work is available for some time now. I guess once again when the work units I am processing now are finished then I will be idle until sometime tomorrow. Is anyone else experiencing this?


Hang in there, one of my rigs just downloaded new work a few minutes ago. I think it may have to do with some of the feeder issues they have had from time to time as of late, because there is a plenty of work available. If you getting an error message when Boinc requests work, you may want to reboot to reset anytbing that may be hung up. If it is connecting to the server OK, but just says 'no work from project', just keep trying the update button once in a while and I think you will get some eventually.

"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

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Message 577012 - Posted: 27 May 2007, 22:29:09 UTC

Somekind of network/server problem shows at the Gigabit graph ??
http://fragment1.berkeley.edu/newcricket/grapher.cgi?target=%2Frouter-interfaces%2Finr-250%2Fgigabitethernet2_3;view=Octets;ranges=d

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Message 577016 - Posted: 27 May 2007, 22:32:44 UTC - in response to Message 577012.  

Somekind of network/server problem shows at the Gigabit graph ??
http://fragment1.berkeley.edu/newcricket/grapher.cgi?target=%2Frouter-interfaces%2Finr-250%2Fgigabitethernet2_3;view=Octets;ranges=d

Kiva


Yeah, the ol' Cricket is jumpin' around a bit again. Sumpthin's afoot or afoul.

"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

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Message 577026 - Posted: 27 May 2007, 22:49:05 UTC
Last modified: 27 May 2007, 22:54:37 UTC

All my rigs just got through about 5 minutes ago. May just be a small hiccup.
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Message 577030 - Posted: 27 May 2007, 22:54:24 UTC

Correction on my last. Uploads and reporting OK, No new downloads- Getting-No new work messages.
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Message 577070 - Posted: 28 May 2007, 0:45:32 UTC - in response to Message 576985.  
Last modified: 28 May 2007, 0:46:16 UTC

More specifically, the minimum deadline for any project should be 10 days + the shortest WU deadline length.

Sorry, I don’t follow you. What’s the difference between “(minimum) deadline” and “(shortest) WU deadline length”?

No difference. I don't understand what you are asking.

If they’re the same, you seem to be saying D = 10 + D above, which doesn’t make sense.

Computational deadline = report deadline - (Work Buffer size + 1 day + "switch between projects every N hours")
A Task is in deadline trouble if Computational deadline < 0.9 * report deadline

(Here “deadline” must mean the time interval allowed rather than the epoch of cutoff.)

So I had it wrong. The minimum needs to be even longer. With a deadline of 14 days, the longest setting you can use for "connect" is just over 6 days. You still cannot get anything larger to work properly.

I was wrong as well (although I believe what I said would have been true of some older BOINC clients). But I don’t see where the [[Work_Buffer]] article got that 6 days (or any of the other figures in the table). Assuming “Work Buffer size” indeed means the CI, with a two-week deadline and project-switching every hour, in order to avoid “deadline trouble” I get

Dc ≥ 0.9·Dr
14 d – (CI + 1.04 d) ≥ 12.6 d
CI ≤ 0.36 d

Where have I gone wrong?

With a CI of ten days, we have

Dc ≥ 0.9·Dr
Dr – 11.04 d ≥ 0.9·Dr
Dr ≥ 110.4 d

implying that users with a ten-day CI will only stay out of EDF on projects with deadlines of nearly four months or longer! Again, have I screwed up my derivation somewhere, or is the Wiki description a bit garbled?
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Message 577090 - Posted: 28 May 2007, 1:21:06 UTC - in response to Message 577070.  

If they’re the same, you seem to be saying D = 10 + D above, which doesn’t make sense.


Ah, I see now. Yes, I wrote gibberish. I meant to write 10 days + the length of time to crunch a WU. But like I said, that was wrong. Needs to be longer.

I was wrong as well (although I believe what I said would have been true of some older BOINC clients). But I don’t see where the [[Work_Buffer]] article got that 6 days (or any of the other figures in the table). Assuming “Work Buffer size” indeed means the CI, with a two-week deadline and project-switching every hour, in order to avoid “deadline trouble” I get

Dc ≥ 0.9·Dr
14 d – (CI + 1.04 d) ≥ 12.6 d
CI ≤ 0.36 d

Where have I gone wrong?

With a CI of ten days, we have

Dc ≥ 0.9·Dr
Dr – 11.04 d ≥ 0.9·Dr
Dr ≥ 110.4 d

implying that users with a ten-day CI will only stay out of EDF on projects with deadlines of nearly four months or longer! Again, have I screwed up my derivation somewhere, or is the Wiki description a bit garbled?

This is what JM7 wrote on the mail list:

"Computation deadline = report deadline - ( connect every X + switch
projects every X, + 1 day).

If a task cannot be completed within 90% of the time between now and the
computation deadline it is in deadline trouble. S@H has tasks that have
about a 4 day deadline. 4 - (2 + 1 + .05) = 0.95 days. If the time
before getting started + the time to compute > 0.95 days, the task is in
deadline trouble."

This seems to match the wiki. And I think you're right. Something's not right with the formula, but I believe it is what BOINC uses.
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Message 577109 - Posted: 28 May 2007, 2:02:31 UTC - in response to Message 577030.  

Correction on my last. Uploads and reporting OK, No new downloads- Getting-No new work messages.


Same here - no work from project

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Message 577146 - Posted: 28 May 2007, 2:51:47 UTC

Sadness!!!
The cores are cooling down.
I'm starting to shivv'r

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Message 577164 - Posted: 28 May 2007, 3:23:51 UTC - in response to Message 577109.  

Correction on my last. Uploads and reporting OK, No new downloads- Getting-No new work messages.


Same here - no work from project



Ah, getting data now. Whatever the glitch was, seems to be over.


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Message 577205 - Posted: 28 May 2007, 4:35:53 UTC

FOR WHAT IT IS WORTH i AM PROCESSING A FULL SIX PACK SO THE PROBLEM WAS FLEETING.
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Message 577208 - Posted: 28 May 2007, 4:47:25 UTC - in response to Message 577205.  

FOR WHAT IT IS WORTH i AM PROCESSING A FULL SIX PACK SO THE PROBLEM WAS FLEETING.


LOL

I know that feeling :D
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Message 577215 - Posted: 28 May 2007, 5:05:48 UTC - in response to Message 577090.  

If they’re the same, you seem to be saying D = 10 + D above, which doesn’t make sense.


Ah, I see now. Yes, I wrote gibberish. I meant to write 10 days + the length of time to crunch a WU. But like I said, that was wrong. Needs to be longer.

I was wrong as well (although I believe what I said would have been true of some older BOINC clients). But I don’t see where the [[Work_Buffer]] article got that 6 days (or any of the other figures in the table). Assuming “Work Buffer size” indeed means the CI, with a two-week deadline and project-switching every hour, in order to avoid “deadline trouble” I get

Dc ≥ 0.9·Dr
14 d – (CI + 1.04 d) ≥ 12.6 d
CI ≤ 0.36 d

Where have I gone wrong?

With a CI of ten days, we have

Dc ≥ 0.9·Dr
Dr – 11.04 d ≥ 0.9·Dr
Dr ≥ 110.4 d

implying that users with a ten-day CI will only stay out of EDF on projects with deadlines of nearly four months or longer! Again, have I screwed up my derivation somewhere, or is the Wiki description a bit garbled?

This is what JM7 wrote on the mail list:

"Computation deadline = report deadline - ( connect every X + switch
projects every X, + 1 day).

If a task cannot be completed within 90% of the time between now and the
computation deadline it is in deadline trouble. S@H has tasks that have
about a 4 day deadline. 4 - (2 + 1 + .05) = 0.95 days. If the time
before getting started + the time to compute > 0.95 days, the task is in
deadline trouble."

This seems to match the wiki. And I think you're right. Something's not right with the formula, but I believe it is what BOINC uses.

A 3.0 GHz P4 HT computer down loads an AR = 3.12 unit at 16:35 on Thursday afternoon.
The report deadline is 4 days 8 hrs 10 mins away.
The computer is crunching two units;
AR=0.394	00:31:20	30.4%	01:11:40
AR=0.443	01:11:50	75.6%	00:23:10

There are already two other units in work cache with 15 and 21 day reporting deadlines
The computer is in an office, and is only on Monday to Thurday from 08:00 to 17:00 and on Friday 08:00 to 14:00.
The last unit of this AR took approx 4,000sec.
Connect to network is 1 days.
% of time BOINC client is running - 96.8792 %
While BOINC running, % of time work is allowed - 68.8305 %
Average CPU efficiency - 0.893249

What formula would you use to ensure the unit is returned on time?
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Message 577325 - Posted: 28 May 2007, 12:05:18 UTC - in response to Message 577090.  
Last modified: 28 May 2007, 12:06:07 UTC

This is what JM7 wrote on the mail list:

"Computation deadline = report deadline - ( connect every X + switch
projects every X, + 1 day).

If a task cannot be completed within 90% of the time between now and the
computation deadline it is in deadline trouble. S@H has tasks that have
about a 4 day deadline. 4 - (2 + 1 + .05) = 0.95 days. If the time
before getting started + the time to compute > 0.95 days, the task is in
deadline trouble."

This seems to match the wiki. And I think you're right. Something's not right with the formula, but I believe it is what BOINC uses.

Well, I wrote the WIKI-description, so it's possibly I've mis-interpreted JM7's post, or I'm not very good at explaining things...

Still, let's try to use same example as JM7, with 4 days deadline and 2 days cache-size:

Computational deadline = report deadline - (Work Buffer size + 1 day + "switch between projects every N hours") = 4 days - (2 days + 1 day + 1/24 days) = 0.958 days

So far, so good...

So for the 2nd. part...

If client isn't blocked from asking for work, or project doesn't manage to supply enough work, the "time to compute" >= "Work Buffer size". Since server can't give-out a fraction of a wu, most of the time "time to compute" is larger than cache-size...

Meaning you have in this example:
0 days "time before getting started" + 2 days "time to compute" > 0.958 days => you're in deadline-trouble => Client blocked from asking for work until not in deadline-trouble any longer, or idle cpu...


If haven't made a mistake by my usage of 90%, after some re-formatting I've got this formula:
"Max Cache-size" = 0.9 * "deadline" / 1.9 - 0.9 / (24*1.9) - 0.9/1.9
= 0.473684 * "deadline" - 0.493421

From this, it's easy to calculate that with 4.3 days deadline, max cache-size is... 1.54 days.

Also, cache-size 10 days => "deadline" = 22.153 days

"I make so many mistakes. But then just think of all the mistakes I don't make, although I might."
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Message 577364 - Posted: 28 May 2007, 14:05:11 UTC - in response to Message 577208.  

FOR WHAT IT IS WORTH i AM PROCESSING A FULL SIX PACK SO THE PROBLEM WAS FLEETING.


LOL

I know that feeling :D



Wish i was, can only d/l one WU per machine,whereas 2days ago I could have two running on each PC and I ready to start.

Any Ideas??

Have tried the usual suspects detaching and reattching flushing dns but to no avail
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Message 577444 - Posted: 28 May 2007, 16:27:29 UTC - in response to Message 577364.  
Last modified: 28 May 2007, 16:27:55 UTC

Wish i was, can only d/l one WU per machine,whereas 2days ago I could have two running on each PC and I ready to start.

Any Ideas??
Today (Monday, May 28, 2007) is a major holiday in the USA. Based on the appearance of the Cricket Graph I imagine waiting until the working day tomorrow in California is your best option.
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Message 577453 - Posted: 28 May 2007, 20:48:32 UTC - in response to Message 577444.  

Wish i was, can only d/l one WU per machine,whereas 2days ago I could have two running on each PC and I ready to start.

Any Ideas??
Today (Monday, May 28, 2007) is a major holiday in the USA. Based on the appearance of the Cricket Graph I imagine waiting until the working day tomorrow in California is your best option.


The database server was down and back up again today. I'm guessing they came in and fixed the problem.
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Message boards : Technical News : Chaos at the Greasy Spoon (May 24 2007)


 
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