In other words, I gotta eat. - Matt

@Matt
Oooo, sorry Matt, Rally's (fast-food chain in the midwest) called and want's their marketing phrase back.

It's the only thing of value to the corporation since their food is rather nasty... (ducking)

I think I remember eating. It involved ingesting, right? Wasn't food involved?

@NeoHamsterdance
See the definition of the term "unladen swallow".

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Stewie: So, is there any tread left on the tires? Or at this point would it be like throwing a hot dog down a hallway?

Fox Sunday (US) at 9PM ET/PT

If we don't find SETI, will the donators get their money back?

If we do find SETI, will Matt take us all out to a fancy restaurant for a meal?

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Join TeamACC

Sometimes I think we are alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we are not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.

Just out of curiosity, did our donations help contribute to the purchase of any new equipment? Or, in general terms, how did our money get used?

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Just out of curiosity, did our donations help contribute to the purchase of any new equipment? Or, in general terms, how did our money get used?

The way I understand it is that the donations go to a general fund specifically for SETI@Home and can only be used by SETI for whatever's needed specific to the project.

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CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Probably best to be clear on donations...

"Most of our budget goes to pay the salaries of students and staff members. Other expenses include travel to Arecibo and conferences, network bandwidth, hardware maintenance, and one-time purchases like the air conditioner in our machine room. Almost none of our budget is spent on hardware (desktop and server computers, disks, tapes, telescope electronics etc.); these items have been generously donated by corporate sponsors."

http://seticlassic.ssl.berkeley.edu/donor.html

Probably best to be clear on donations...

"Most of our budget goes to pay the salaries of students and staff members. Other expenses include travel to Arecibo and conferences, network bandwidth, hardware maintenance, and one-time purchases like the air conditioner in our machine room. Almost none of our budget is spent on hardware (desktop and server computers, disks, tapes, telescope electronics etc.); these items have been generously donated by corporate sponsors."

http://seticlassic.ssl.berkeley.edu/donor.html

Hey Havoc, not bad for a first post. >:-) Thanks! This info should alleviate any questions people may have on how the funds are spent. Thanks again.... >:-)

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CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Why can't Sun Microsystems provide current top of the line equipment instead of outdated hardware?

Chuck

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As I recall, Sun just recently provided an AMD Opteron based server with dual
Opteron 844 CPU's (expandable to 4 CPU's) and 8GB Ram. It is not yet listed
on the server status page (I don't know why), but it is online. I remember
the news post about it saying that they are doing a LOT of work on it, and
it's CPU loading is still quite low...

Regards, Daniel.

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I would love it if someone could find it

Right Now the Best Server they have is the E3500 (displayed), if you look at Sun's link, End of life was April 2003
E3500
It is Obsolete...

That one dual Opteron could produce up to 90% of both E3500's (kryten and galileo)... What would happen to the bottle necks that we are seeing?

If they have it, it could be to valuable to do Seti... I would suspect that they are hording it and BOINC Seti Users do not matter... The aftermath in the Forums tends to indicate they are less than caring... Has anyone looked that their BOINCStats to see the UsS and Downs... and wondering if your computer is running 24/7 why you can not get a consistent statistic... Your computers produce that same amount of work everyday...

R/

Al

As I recall, Sun just recently provided an AMD Opteron based server with dual
Opteron 844 CPU's (expandable to 4 CPU's) and 8GB Ram. It is not yet listed
on the server status page (I don't know why), but it is online. I remember
the news post about it saying that they are doing a LOT of work on it, and
it's CPU loading is still quite low...

Regards, Daniel.

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Please consider a Donation to the Seti Project.

The Opteron we actually purchased, and it's the main BOINC database server.

- 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

to bad they can not post a "wish list" of what they need. i know that ebay sell alot of parts for SUN'S and if you list 440mhz or what type of ram, or even sells you might get a little help upgrading

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Matt

Thank You

Just for the sake of thought process, IF a second Opteron Server could be Purchased as a replacement for the Scheduler, what would be the minimum requirements?

Procs
RAM
Hard Drives
etc
Could SATA Drives work?

The Opteron we actually purchased, and it's the main BOINC database server.

- Matt

R/

Al

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Please consider a Donation to the Seti Project.

Another source of bottle necks, as I'm sure you know, is the network. Some of their interconnecting network still runs on 100MBit lines. Maybe a couple of 1GBit switches and cards might do them some good, too.

That one dual Opteron could produce up to 90% of both E3500's (kryten and galileo)... What would happen to the bottle necks that we are seeing?

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Well, something else to think on is that our biggest server need at this point in time is a second Opteron like our first (v40z, 2 CPU, 16GB) with any kind of 1 Terabyte storage to act as a database replica server. Then we wouldn't have to have outages every week to do database backups. Outages make people angry, whether or not they are planned and necessary.

I'll try to tie all this up in a lengthy tech news report soon...

- Matt

Matt
Just for the sake of thought process, IF a second Opteron Server could be Purchased as a replacement for the Scheduler, what would be the minimum requirements?

Procs
RAM
Hard Drives
etc
Could SATA Drives work?

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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

Matt Thank You

I did go find the information, so those that want to donate. This is what UCB say they need or an equivalent... Inline below

Well, something else to think on is that our biggest server need at this point in time is a second Opteron like our first (v40z, 2 CPU, 16GB) with any kind of 1 Terabyte storage to act as a database replica server. Then we wouldn't have to have outages every week to do database backups.

Sun v40z

Sun Educational Discounts


EDUCATION ONLY-Sun Fire V40z AMD Opteron 3U Rack Mnt x86 Server, 4 x AMD Opteron 852 CPUs, 16GB DDR1/400 ECC DIMMs (8x2GB),2x73GB 10K RPM Ultra320 SCSI disks, 2x 10/100/1000 Ethernet, RAID 1,LOM, 4xFull Hght/Full-Lgth 64 bit/133 MHz PCI-X, 1xFull Hgt/Full-Lgth & 1xFull Hgt/Half-Lgth 64-bit/100MHz slots,1xHalfHght/Half Lgth 64-bit/66MHz PCI-X slot, DVD/flpy incl- 2 redundant pwr supplies, no pwr cords; order 2 geo-specific X-options, Sol 10 x86 pre-install, Std Cfg. S2.0

Part Number: A57-MGB416GRB7A-E

Last order date: September 30, 2005

List Price: $31,595
Education Promotional Price: $15,795

As I looked around at SUN a bit more installing a Terabyte (RAID5)in the machine would add [300-GB 10000 RPM Ultra320 SCSI Disk Drives 4 @ $895.00 each = $3580]

So the next question becomes if a non SUN server could be constructed for less money and you roll your own SUN OS would you be interested... That server could be constructed and probably a 1+ terabyte "Clustered, Mirrored RAID" could be had for the same money. I saw the Equivalent of that machine at the AMD/Microsoft Road show for about $6,000 and it had 2 Dual Core Procs, 16 Gig of RAM and 600 Gigabytes of RAID 5 installed...

So as the end of life approaches on the Sun v40z, the new options get really pricey...


Planned outages are not really a bad thing... I do not mind the ones that are planned... I do have customers that really get upset with the Unplanned ones though... LOL

Outages make people angry, whether or not they are planned and necessary.

I'll try to tie all this up in a lengthy tech news report soon...

- Matt

[quote]Matt
Just for the sake of thought process, IF a second Opteron Server could be Purchased as a replacement for the Scheduler, what would be the minimum requirements?

Procs
RAM
Hard Drives
etc
Could SATA Drives work?

---

Please consider a Donation to the Seti Project.

I purchased one of those official SETI@home certificate frames. I hope it helps.

Cheers

Bill

---

Well, something else to think on is that our biggest server need at this point in time is a second Opteron like our first (v40z, 2 CPU, 16GB) with any kind of 1 Terabyte storage to act as a database replica server. Then we wouldn't have to have outages every week to do database backups. Outages make people angry, whether or not they are planned and necessary.

I'll try to tie all this up in a lengthy tech news report soon...

- Matt

....

Matt, I don't get angry about the planned outages. I understand that they are needed from time to time. Frankly, I don't get angry about any outages, because I know that BOINC will get things back to status quo. How many others have said that, or are willing to say that, if true? I used to get frustrated about them, but I had read the threads in NC, at the time, and learned that it was unhealthy to get angry about outages. >:-) (-:<

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CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

I have been reading up on sponsorship and have gathered this info

""Corporate Sponsor
SETI@home is a non-profit research project, funded by a mixture of corporate funding, government grants, and private donations. We need money to pay programmer salaries and buy equipment. Donate $10,000 or more to SETI@home, and your company will be listed (with a logo and link to your web site, if you desire) on our web site, which currently gets over 100,000 visits per day. We also list our sponsors on the screensaver's "About box". ""

and then there is this

""How your donation is spent
Most of our budget goes to pay the salaries of students and staff members. Other expenses include travel to Arecibo and conferences, network bandwidth, hardware maintenance, and one-time purchases like the air conditioner in our machine room. Almost none of our budget is spent on hardware (desktop and server computers, disks, tapes, telescope electronics etc.); these items have been generously donated by corporate sponsors. ""

The interesting point here is that donations are used to pay "programmers". I say walk into the 4th year Computer Science {or whatever you have at Berkley} classes and speak to some of the students. I am sure they would help for free.

Cheers

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Well, on July 19 I donated a small amount of $25 to SETI and now I have received a warm thank-you letter in the snail mail! That was nice. I will donate more at the end of this month (when money gets in here). :)

I could scan the letter and let everybody see how it looks like, but you have to see it for yourself. ;) How can you do that? By donating! Maybe, just maybe, these letters will someday be rare collectibles...

So, next time you receive your paycheck, donate something to SETI you too! :)

I'm willing to donate some money to this project as I did for BURP, but I don't have a credit card.
Janus had opened a PayPal Account for BURP donations and this is a very handy way for me (or every other person without a credit card) to spend money internationally.

Will Berkeley have a PayPal account in the next future?

Andy

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The biggest bug is sitting 10 inch in front of the screen.