 |
|
DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /
|
Applications:
SUN HELPS FUND SETI
GRID
Sun Microsystems Inc announced it will fund the worldwide release of a new
generation of SETI@home, a scientific experiment managed by a group of
researchers at the Space Sciences Laboratory of the University of
California-Berkeley that uses Internet-connected computers in the search for
extraterrestrial intelligence. Based on Sun hardware, the SETI@home project
has developed a software platform, Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network
Computing (BOINC), that makes it easy for academic and industrial scientists
to create public computing projects more inexpensively and quickly than
previously possible and allows PC users to participate in several projects
simultaneously.
Public computing is a new paradigm, joining supercomputing, cluster
computing
and Grid computing as ways of solving compute-intensive problems. This type of
computing is much different from other types of computing which involve
sharing managed resources among institutions. It has the potential to deliver
unprecedented amounts of computing power and storage. Since BOINC keeps track
of individual computers, it has twice the database throughput requirements of
the original SETI@home.
A wide array of Sun hardware contributes to the success of SETI@home,
including a Sun Enterprise 3500 server, three Sun Enterprise 450 servers, four
Sun Fire 480R servers and two Netra servers running the Solaris Operating
Environment. In addition to a number of Sun servers, SETI@home is powered by
several Sun workstations that are utilized by SETI@home, such as a Sun Ultra
60 workstation, two Ultra 2 workstations and five Ultra 10 workstations. Sun's
hardware reliability, security features, and excellent technical support have
played a key role in SETI@home's success.
"Public computing has been very effective for applications that appeal to
people and need lots of computing power," says Dr. David P. Anderson, director
of SETI@home and BOINC. "These applications exist in many areas of science.
It's a great way to get people involved in science, not just as bystanders,
but as participants."
BOINC is a full-featured, free software system for creating public
distributed
computing projects consisting of several components. Its servers system
manages work queuing and scheduling, account management, platforms and
versioning. It provides numerous project management and maintenance tools, and
provides Web-based participant features such as profiles and teams. The client
side consists of a "core client" application, available for all key platforms
that manage computation, storage and communication.
"The future of the supercomputing industry belongs to open architectures
and
public computing -- which Sun actively champions and implements. As such, Sun
is committed to advancing academic research through its involvement with the
SETI project at Berkeley," said Joerg Schwarz, group manager for Scientific &
Engineering Computing, Global Education and Research at Sun Microsystems Inc.
"Thanks to the use of public computing, the world's computer users can also
play a part in advancing academic research in other areas of study."
BOINC is available for free public beta testing under a public license at
boinc.berkeley.edu/. Projects
can
be created by simply
downloading
the
server software, porting the application to the client framework and
publicizing the project. PC owners around the world can run the BOINC client
and sign up for whatever projects they wish, supporting scientific research
according to their interests and priorities.
About Sun Microsystems Inc
Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- "The Network Is The
Computer" -- has propelled Sun Microsystems Inc to its position as a leading
provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the
Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide
Web at www.sun.com/.
|