Technical News, and SETI@home daily stats for 16.01.2008.

[Rattledagger]

Playing Fair (Jan 15 2008)

Yeah... we're really pushing the boundaries of our mysql database these days. I'm finally catching up on several years' of backlogged archives and inserting zillions of rows to credited_job and this, on top of general increased usage, is gumming up the works. In fact, optimizing this table alone during today's outage took three hours (normally only a few minutes) - which explains the extreme length of today's downtime. I guess we'll have to turn of credited_job optimization until we actually use the table.

This brings up several questions, the first of which was asked in a previous thread: Why are you guys using mysql instead of a more robust commercial product? Two main reasons: BOINC projects generally are small academic ventures with limited funds, and BOINC is an open-source project itself utilizing other open-source pieces of software. So all you need is a relatively cheap linux box which comes with php, apache, mysql, etc. and it's pretty much plug and play. Remember the project specific data, i.e. the science database, can be whatever you want. In our case, it's Informix. Why Informix? We got it for free 10 years ago - we now have 10 years of experience using it as a group and it is still free to us. Would we consider changing to Oracle/SQL server/etc.? If somebody wants to buy such a license and donate a man/year to change all our back end software to do so, then we would perhaps entertain the thought, but we have higher priorities, especially as Informix works perfectly well at this point. It's the BOINC/mysql part that needs help, and we're sticking with it for reasons stated above, and with SETI@home being the flagship project of BOINC we don't want to diverge from the standard.

In other news, it seems the every day there's a different reason our web sites are so darn slow. Yesterday afternoon we were getting hit by some seemingly nefarious activity which I was able to block quite easily once I discovered it. But we were also getting hit by some scraping of stats pages via a robot (called BoincBot) that was not obeying robots.txt. I blocked these hits as well. We don't allow such activity on our web sites. If you want BOINC stats you can download the daily xml dumps just like everybody else.

On the bright side, we obtained another server donation yesterday from a private party: a 1U dual-opteron (2.4GHz) server with 16GB memory. I installed FC8 on it just now, though there was a little bit of tweaking to get that to go. There's no DVD drive in the thing (only a CD drive) and for some reason the was some disconnect with the 3ware disk controller such that the linux installer couldn't see the two root drives. I ultimately took that out of the equation and plugged the drives straight into the SATA ports on the motherboard. All's well and it's getting all yummed up now.

So we're looking for a KVM-over-IP, at least 16 ports (24 preferable), easy-to-use but secure connections via a web browser, etc. Any thoughts? The Belkin Omniview seems the cheapest/easiest, but only allows one person to connect to the whole unit at a time - not a showstopper. Any suggestions, experience with such devices, etc. out there?

- Matt

#____Total Work Done____Todays WD_______AWD________overtake________Team-name
01______398.894.069______668.108______628.289______impossible______SETI.USA
02______331.565.429______770.807______733.332______impossible______SETI.Germany
03______138.371.501______207.057______196.955______impossible______L'Alliance Francophone
04______116.119.429_______50.385_______50.870______impossible______BroadbandReports.com Team Starfire
05______115.318.342______138.429______149.779______impossible______BOINC Synergy
06_______98.360.343______101.961_______78.547______impossible______Czech National Team
07_______92.441.254______142.115______117.495______impossible______SETI@Netherlands
08_______82.359.839______145.055______131.831______impossible______The Knights Who Say Ni!
09_______43.842.665_______85.758_______67.267______impossible______Overclockers.com
10_______40.690.790_______37.466_______38.177______impossible______Team Art Bell
11_______40.070.022______-41.110______-44.337________904 days______OcUK - Overclockers UK
12_______33.906.482_______37.482_______23.945______impossible______Team 2ch
13_______29.088.789_______10.469_______16.083______impossible______The Planetary Society
14_______29.019.621_______50.712_______40.311______impossible______Team MacNN
15_______22.304.107______-78.963______-81.441________274 days______BOINC.Italy
16_______12.206.395______-28.872______-34.115________358 days______Ars Technica
17________1.385.924_______93.416_______67.150______impossible______Team China
18__________379.034_______62.903_______25.831______impossible______SETI@Taiwan
19_______75.811.634______147.208______149.677______notanoption_____TeAm AnandTech
20_______-1.688.378______-38.142______-40.006______impossible______Universe Examiners
21_______-2.472.828______-10.040______-18.854______impossible______Phoenix Rising
22_______-2.676.945_______61.606_______67.214_________40 days______Team Starfire World BOINC
23______-14.599.634_______-9.150______-16.644______impossible______Canada
24______-15.503.903______-28.272______-37.968______impossible______Dutch Power Cows
25______-17.465.459______-45.767______-49.008______impossible______Amateur Radio Operators
26______-18.105.520______-69.282______-67.398______impossible______PC Perspective Killer Frogs
27______-18.610.434______-88.044______-89.064______impossible______Hewlett-Packard
28______-21.189.207_______-1.464______-11.351______impossible______UK BOINC Team
29______-23.323.890_______30.633_______28.335________823 days______AUSTRIA - NATIONAL - TEAM
30______-23.712.412_________-463_______-8.085______impossible______US NAVY
31______-23.972.803______-45.245______-49.916______impossible______Team NIPPON
32______-24.518.128______-62.289______-68.162______impossible______Team MacAddict
33______-24.627.006______-28.786______-39.744______impossible______BOINC SETI@home RUSSIA
34______-24.969.868______-25.777______-32.923______impossible______BOINC@AUSTRALIA
35______-26.431.069______-51.716______-50.656______impossible______BOINC@Denmark
36______-27.073.034______-54.851______-58.342______impossible______Hungary
37______-27.491.717______-12.608______-18.890______impossible______U.S.Air Force
38______-27.980.126______-93.116______-96.753______impossible______2CPU.com
39______-28.948.571_____-119.330_____-116.544______impossible______Planet 3DNow!
40______-33.802.909______-91.628______-96.471______impossible______Portugal@Home
41______-34.879.636______-66.253______-76.724______impossible______SETI.hr
42______-35.441.312______-65.379______-71.254______impossible______SETI@klamm.de
43______-39.393.990______-98.909_____-102.808______impossible______Team EDGE
44______-39.396.289______-87.687______-96.057______impossible______HispaSeti & BOINC
45______-39.590.945______-86.181______-88.929______impossible______BOINC.SK
46______-40.374.738______-79.877______-83.063______impossible______SETI Sverige [Sweden]
47______-40.633.651_____-122.695_____-127.023______impossible______Picard
48______-41.430.889______-32.627______-42.240______impossible______BOINC@Poland
49______-41.587.587_____-128.380_____-131.929______impossible______LittleWhiteDog
50______-44.117.963______-87.754______-98.257______impossible______BOINC UK

Appart for Anandtech's stats, it shows how much more/less than Anandtech.
Also shows based on Average Work Done how many days for Anandtech to overtake the team, or be overtaken by a team behind...

 

[petrusbroder]

Thanks for the info and the stats, Rattledagger! 😀 Very much appreciated! :thumbsup: