Status / Credit (Nov 03 2010)

Yes Pics

and lets same some tech porn to.

Maybe a nice advanced status page. CPU graphs and Disk IO/network usage.

Give us a picture of just how much work you get though them servers. might make the people can are worried about downtime think twice :)


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Maybe there's some confusion about this credit granting process.

By cleanup I wasn't referring to any corruption. In fact, the data in the databases is/are as clean as ever, it's just that both the mysql (boinc) and informix (science) databases are too darn big. This mega-outage is to get new servers on line for both that can handle the job. Before we can do that, we'd like to reduce the size of the databases to make the transitions easier. Of course there's some gunk in the databases pertaining to things like ghost wu's, orphaned results or signals, etc. Nothing new - but when the databases are quiet and vastly reduced in size this is a golden opportunity to analyse and understand these various long-standing issues - that's what I'm talking about cleanup.

Meanwhile, we've been dealing with all kinds of long planned and unplanned outages, causing users much grief with timeouts. This credit granting procedure ensures that people are getting the credit they deserve for work done without having to wait for wingmen who never show up. And we're not throwing out any science.

By the way, download servers are starting up so we're starting to clear out *that* queue.

- Matt


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-- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person
-- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude

I've got my first allocations since the scheduler was switched back on, and I see:

1) The tasks I'm getting are all _0 and _1 - i.e. new work, we're not down to the resends yet.
2) A very high proportion of them are 'shorties'

That's hardly the most restful convalescence for poor Jocelyn, Anakin, and Vader - but I suppose it just represents the tapes the splitters were working on just before the last shutdown.

There's probably AP work in the mix as well. Hardly surprising that the download link went straight to 93 Mbit/s and has stayed there ever since.

To avoid creating yet more ghosts, might it be a good idea to periodically pause the 'new work allocation' side of the scheduler - now you have the tool to do that - while still allowing reporting? That would allow the download rate for allocated work to decay for a while, thus both allowing uploads/reporting to flow freely, and minimise the risk of work being trapped in limbo should, heaven forfend, the sudden rush of work trigger another nervous breakdown server-side.

Does it make people feel good to get credit for work which probably now has no chance of contributing to the science? Has the project underestimated the quality of the participants?

To my mind, getting credit without a corresponding increase in consecutive valid is much like having a rotten tomato thrown at me versus having a fresh vine ripened tomato handed to me. It was probably inevitable that the project would need to cancel some work to make the transition to the new servers cleaner, but my vote if we had been asked would have favored no credit for unresolved work.

I bring this up to get others' opinions, in the hope that "I may have to do this granting again once this first round of cleanup is over." will be handled differently.

Joe

I've got my first allocations since the scheduler was switched back on, and I see:

1) The tasks I'm getting are all _0 and _1 - i.e. new work, we're not down to the resends yet.
2) A very high proportion of them are 'shorties'

My first batch of new work was all initial issue VLARs, after a couple of them had been done i got one new shortie.
Since then all of my new work has been VLAR re-issues, not a shortie in sight.

In the past hours, starting probably late last night, local time (UTC+1), all SETI Bêta WU's are UPLoaded are new ones were D'lOaded. All 3 QUADS + CUDA are running SETI MB WU's.

Can't see, Result Page Option is turned off, deminiching SERVER load.
Haven't changed any setting in BOINC, since a few month. Most of the time it wasn't possible at all.....:)

But I do hope WU's are validated and granted credit, if a Canonnical Result is made.
(I think, giving Credit for work not done, isn't seving science, so why do it.)

And I agree with Raistmer, as to the 'value' of Credits, difference between projects are out of balance, I think.

About both D'Load Servers, turned on (As of 5 Nov 2010 14:30:05 UTC), all D'Loads are through almost immediatly, quite difference from last days or weeks.
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Knight Who Says Ni N!, OUT numbered.................

i thought we were here to donate processer time, credits are interesting but not what we are here for, or am i alone in thinking the S.e.t.i programme is what counts.

...
Observation: the backlog of results 'ready to send' ran out, for both MB and AP, around 10:00 UTC, or a few minutes before. There's still a trickle, but effectively no new downloads will have been added to the download server queue since then.

The download pipe remained saturated at 93 Mbit/sec until about 10:50 UTC, the best part of an hour later. That gives us some idea of the relative speeds of the various project components: I think we need to use the remaining time before the new servers arrive to work out some way of helping the scheduler request/reply messages get through (and hence avoid creating a new set of ghosts), while Oscar and friend keep the pipe full.

it's just that both the mysql (boinc) and informix (science) databases are too darn big.