Barring unexpected incident, we'll be turning the spigots back on tomorrow (Friday) morning as planned. Thanks for your patience as we sort out what kind of server outage schedule ends up being the most productive - a definite work in progress. So what did we accomplish this week during the downtime?

Programming wise, Jeff was able to tackle some longstanding datarecorder issues. You may have noticed our results-to-send queue has been growing rather large - these are some test tapes Jeff's been splitting which will be sent out rather quickly once the floodgates open (the status page already shows the schedulers are up which is wrong - that's a bug I need to fix). I did some cleanup of our various internal libraries - stuff that would never get done under normal-operation circumstances but has been bugging us for a long time. I also fixed a web site bug here, a donation processing bug there.

Server wise, I got to upgrade the OS/mysql versions on the BOINC database servers - another thing that's been bothering me for a while. We also were able to do some testing/planning for some major server shuffling - trying to get the right services on the right servers, and the most important services on the most reliable servers. We still may have to get new hardware. I'll let you know.

Data wise, we were able to get back to merging our various spike tables together full bore - doing so while the project was up was causing all kinds of headaches. We'll have to turn the merge off over the weekend, of course. I also was able to do a whole bunch of data integrity testing - it's nice to be able to pull 1 Gbyte of signals out of the science database without the query getting blocked, or worrying about blocking other queries.

In short, it may not seem like much this first week given the extended downtime, but the mood around here is a lot better when we have the time and resources to take care of longstanding projects without worrying about squeezing them in edgewise. I think general productivity will vastly improve over time, and we'll adjust the outage schedules accordingly.

Speaking of time, I'm actually outta here - going on a three week vacation for various reasons. It'll actually be a "staycation" so I'll be on call to help in case of a crisis...

- 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

Awesome job you are doing! I'm very happy you got the chance to address some of these issues. I understand completely!

Steve

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Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
GPUUG Website

Thank you for the update,

Best Wishes
Byron

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Sounds awesome Matt! Thank you to you all for the hard work! Glad to hear you guys were able to get so much done. Hopefully this outage schedule works for you guys.

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Some great bits of news there, Matt.

I am glad that the outage has enabled you to do some otherwise hard to accomplish tasks...

And, do enjoy the 'staycation'.

Mark and the kitties

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

Thanks for the update Matt, have a good holiday,

Claggy

Here's hoping you get to enjoy your staycation without us bothering you. Glad you guys managed to get so much done and hope everything goes well this weekend. Guess we'll find out in the morning! :-)

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PROUD MEMBER OF Team Starfire World BOINC

Thanks for the update but did you guys fix any of the showstopper bugs like completion time estimates that make everything go into high priority and stop all downloads even if you are almost dry? Thanks again....

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Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

Thanks for the update but did you guys fix any of the showstopper bugs like completion time estimates that make everything go into high priority and stop all downloads even if you are almost dry? Thanks again....

That's a Boinc thingy....under DA's control.

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

Wonderful News Matt.

Week 1 Sounds like a success.
Enjoy your "Staycation".

Thanks a heap Matt. You are all doing a great job. It's good to see that the extra time gave the SETI team the ability to perform some tasks that were really needed.

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- Jarryd

Friday is here and still unable to upload and download? Is there a problem with turning the squiggoths back on?

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Friday is here and still unable to upload and download? Is there a problem with turning the squiggoths back on?

LOL! It's still Thursday at Berkeley. Patience, my friend!

Matt

Thanks. Enjoy the time off.. I hope it has nothing to do with SETI funding.

Guess we won't know what's happening for a while again...

The dearth of information when your not around is striking...

Perhaps we can get a SETI schedule and plug it into our PC's so the the work we do will not just sit idle for weeks and weeks and weeks...

Adios Muchacho

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Never engage stupid people at their level, they then have the home court advantage.....

Thanks for the update Matt it's appreciated, good to know you got some problems sorted enjoy your staycation you've earned it!

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I have no idea how much resources are gone during the new 'server outage schedule' with stats-requests, but I may have some ideas about it:

1) The export (in /stats/)
I think you (guys) already thought of this, but I'll mention it, just to be safe. As far as I can see the '29th export' was the last complete one, after the systems went down. But there was a '30th export' with some very marginal new data. It might be a good idea to also completely lock down the export routine in your 'server outage schedule' (no resources lost on creating the export, no bandwidth lost with all those stats guys downloading the new info etc.. ;) )

2) caching the Berkeley-stats-pages
As far as I know the 'userw-data' has a caching of two hours, the team, hosts and user stats have a similar caching system. The various "personal stats pages" are real time. When the 'server outage schedule' kicks in, could caching be set to "indefinitely"? And can the personal stats be cached as well (no use in updating a page when you know the result is the same)?

And as always thanks for the info :)

Best regards,

Eesger

PS: I really hope there is some real vacation in your staycation, you've earned it..

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The SETI@Home Gauntlet 2012 april 16 - 30| info / chat | STATS

if ur on the other side of the earth opposite of USA, it'll be sometime in ur day of Saturday hopefully lol

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He guys, I think you are doing a great job. Mostly admins are highly under appreciated. I watch as the services are coming online and wait until the new work comes available.
Have a nice holiday :-)

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For those of you wondering, it's 6:45AM in Berkeley right now. That's UTC -7 It was posted elsewhere that they are shooting for a 9AM start time (Berkeley time)

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PROUD MEMBER OF Team Starfire World BOINC

Thanks, I live in The Netherlands, Europe. I can wait some hours :-) Keep up the good work.

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