I'm normally not one to complain, but I've been rather frustrated the last several months. It seems like anymore, every time I go to check on my SETI comps they tell me they can't connect to the project. I saw the post on the front page (dated August 6th) that every week now, there is going to be a three day outage starting on Tuesdays. Add to that the "connectivity issues due to catchup" on Friday and the all too frequent other technical issues...that's more down time than up! What gives guys? What is needed to be able to keep things up and running the way they used to? We understand the budgetary constraints you're facing, but this level of availability by a data center does not meet any kind of acceptable standard. If there's something we can do as a community, let us know! Perhaps we need to start a special fundraising drive to obtain the funds needed for a proper data center? I think there's probably enough of of us hardcore crunchers out there that we could raise the funds needed to get you guys some upgraded equipment and facilities.

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Hi Eric,
I think the first thing has to be that Seti isn't and doesn't have access to a data centre. From what I understand they have little more than an old store room for their servers and what ever they have managed to scrounge in the way of servers.
Recently, an extremely generous few people donated a $1k each to by Seti a new server and raised $7k dollars in one go. Last I heard the new server was being spec'd before they signed the order forms.
Although this was a hell of a effort by a few I'm sure that any other idea's you have that would get more money into the Seti coffers would be appreciated!

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What is needed to be able to keep things up and running the way they used to?

The mayor problem with running it the way it used to, was that we did science, but over the course of the past 10 years+ there wasn't anything checking the science done. That's partially being done now, during those 3 days off-time.

I say partially, since they're also in the process of swapping servers around, trying to lose the crash-prone server(s). Plus all kinds of odds and ends that they weren't able to do while the project ran full-steam, since then they were mostly busy fixing broken stuff. Not anything they were actually hired for. (Do read the technical news for lots of updates on what is happening)

So what do you want? That we finally get to go through all the results of the past 10 years, or that we accumulate another 10 years of data and do nothing with it?

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I agree that yes, we should be checking the data. However, it would be nice to have the resources to do both. Believe me, if I had my own datacenter, I would donate some rack space and a few high-powered servers to the cause. Since that isn't going to happen any time soon, I would just like to know what we're facing, and maybe we can do something as a community. Something as simple as a 50/50 raffle amongst us crunchers could raise thousands of dollars towards more servers and dedicated bandwidth. It just would be nice to have an idea of exactly how much is needed. Whatever we come up with, it would obviously have to be signed off on by the SETI organization and coordinated through their website. I believe that would get it out to the largest possible audience. From there, everyone could link to it on their local crunching forums and home pages (I'm a member of overclockers.com). So what say you guys? We run a 50/50 for the cause? I'd be happy to help coordinate the logistics...it's the least I can do.

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All I can tell you is they are doing what they can with what they have. Several of us had a recent donation drive to get additional hardware to work with. They were (and probably still are) having to "borrow" servers in order to run nitpicker through results to "pick out" noise from the database. After this I believe they will have a server they can dedicate to that purpose which may move us eventually back to shorter outages.

Before the longer outages started being scheduled, we were having frequent crashes and major problems all through the week. The 3 day outtages have reduced this to very manageable levels, so it HAS been a step in the right direction. At least we KNOW when the servers will be down.

Our recent fund drive is where we made some progress to helping to address this. They now have some equipment coming in, they will need more(thumper needs new fans to get it through the rest of its limited remaining life.. which may need "field engineering" to replace) but they are going through now what they have and what they need next. It is up to us it seems to try and address these
needs.

This project has survived a recession, and either a great recession/depression,
wars, political and social changes.. And has at the best been on a shoe string.
at this point they are tying together broken shoe strings to keep on running.

So the bottom line answer is increase your cache size to get through the outage(too much extra creates other problems such as over flowing increased pendings), set things the way you want them longer term, have some patience.. and if you can donate a bit to the funds they are trying to make last.

And if these outtages get us closer to finding ET.. I am all for them.

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Janice

It just would be nice to have an idea of exactly how much is needed.

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sah_budget.php shows what's needed. You may also want to read through this thread, to see what has been done already by a few and what else is really wanted.

Also check the rest of http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sah_donate.php, before you think nothing is being done.

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Something as simple as a 50/50 raffle amongst us crunchers could raise thousands of dollars towards more servers and dedicated bandwidth. It just would be nice to have an idea of exactly how much is needed. Whatever we come up with, it would obviously have to be signed off on by the SETI organization and coordinated through their website. I believe that would get it out to the largest possible audience. From there, everyone could link to it on their local crunching forums and home pages (I'm a member of overclockers.com). So what say you guys? We run a 50/50 for the cause? I'd be happy to help coordinate the logistics...it's the least I can do.

I'm not a lawyer, but one of my nieces is, and I am part of the fundraising team for several local Veterans Service Organization Posts. Since S@H is sponsored by and hosted on computers owned by the University of California (including these Forums), any sort of drawing or other fundraiser involving selling chances and prizes would have to be conducted In Accordance With California state law, and most likely have to be conducted solely by S@H project or UC fundraising staff, or a separate California non-profit tax-exempt organization set up to support S@H. There may also be State or Federal restrictions on International participation, she's still researching that issue.

Far simpler to just ask people to make a direct donation to the project, or issue donation challenges like Mark Sattler did.

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Donald
Infernal Optimist / Submariner, retired

SERVER Status:

As of 3 Sep 2010 15:10:09 UTC]

UP-- & D--Load Servers are Disabled
And the same goes for SETI Bêta, unfortunatly.

I do hope they get them UP & RUNNING, before the weekend.

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SERVER Status:

As of 3 Sep 2010 15:10:09 UTC]

UP-- & D--Load Servers are Disabled
And the same goes for SETI Bêta, unfortunatly.

I do hope they get them UP & RUNNING, before the weekend.

We're discussing that over in the Panic Mode On (37) Server Problems thread.

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Donald
Infernal Optimist / Submariner, retired

SERVER Status:

As of 3 Sep 2010 15:10:09 UTC]

UP-- & D--Load Servers are Disabled
And the same goes for SETI Bêta, unfortunatly.

I do hope they get them UP & RUNNING, before the weekend.

You do realize that Berkeley is in the Pacific Time Zone (-8) and they honor daylight savings time (a further -1), so 15:00 UTC is 6:00 a.m.? The staff is probably still snoring at that time...

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BOINC WIKI

SERVER Status:

As of 3 Sep 2010 15:10:09 UTC]

UP-- & D--Load Servers are Disabled
And the same goes for SETI Bêta, unfortunatly.

I do hope they get them UP & RUNNING, before the weekend.

You do realize that Berkeley is in the Pacific Time Zone (-8) and they honor daylight savings time (a further -1), so 15:00 UTC is 6:00 a.m.? The staff is probably still snoring at that time...

Just because this is the Number crunching forum, I feel obliged to point out that daylight savings is a +1 and Berkeley is now at UTC -7. Still, 8:00 a.m. is rather early for expecting all issues to be diagnosed and resolved.

                                                                 Joe

SERVER Status:

As of 3 Sep 2010 15:10:09 UTC]

UP-- & D--Load Servers are Disabled
And the same goes for SETI Bêta, unfortunatly.

I do hope they get them UP & RUNNING, before the weekend.

You do realize that Berkeley is in the Pacific Time Zone (-8) and they honor daylight savings time (a further -1), so 15:00 UTC is 6:00 a.m.? The staff is probably still snoring at that time...

Just because this is the Number crunching forum, I feel obliged to point out that daylight savings is a +1 and Berkeley is now at UTC -7. Still, 8:00 a.m. is rather early for expecting all issues to be diagnosed and resolved.

                                                                 Joe

You are right about the direction.

Especially since I believe they do not all arrive at 8:00 sharp. Think college hours rather than business hours.

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BOINC WIKI

You are right about the direction.

Especially since I believe they do not all arrive at 8:00 sharp. Think college hours rather than business hours.

One of them was in the Lab by 0730 PDT Friday, because the Upload server and several other processes came online at about 0740 for a few minutes, then were taken down again until about 1000.

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Donald
Infernal Optimist / Submariner, retired