Topic: SETI Thread Part III

[Nemesis]

Subject: re: classic coming to an end... Message 1 of 2   
  Posted by Matt Lebofsky   on Nov 7, 2005 at 10:24   

Regarding posts about the "December 15" shutdown date. Sorry I didn't post that
over here - bear in mind that nothing is really official until it makes it to
the news on the front page (or technical news). Though we really really really
want to stick to this schedule, it may slip a week or two. Anyway, expect a
mass e-mail soon, funny warnings from your classic clients, a note on the classic
home page, etc.

Now on the front page

The old SETI@home Classic project will stop issuing work on December 15, 2005. Anyone still running SETI@home Classic should deactivate it and install SETI@home/BOINC (see instructions under 'Getting started' on this page).

I won't be making it to 50,000 WUs but maybe to the top 4,000  (currently 4101st place.) 

It says "stop issuing work", no mention of when it stops accepting work returns.   Load your caches. 

[The Postman]

It says "stop issuing work", no mention of when it stops accepting work returns.   Load your caches. 

from classic home page

News


November 15, 2005
On December 15, 2005, after 6 years of operation, this project will shut down. But SETI@home is not going away. We're alive and well and running on the BOINC distributed computing platform. It's easy to switch over - just follow the instructions on the new SETI@home web site. We hope to see everyone there!

At the time of shutdown, the stats for this project will be frozen but will continue to be available on the web.

Thanks to all original SETI@home participants for their tremendous dedication to the project. You made SETI@home into something of lasting significance.

I read somewhere that they are pulling the plug on the servers on 12/15. Although on another forum boinc thread I think I read you could upload for a couple of days after that.

[The Postman]

The SETI EMAIL has arrived

[/Subject: SETI@home News
Date: 11/21/2005 5:09:53 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
From: setiweb@ssl.berkeley.edu
Reply To: 
To: 
CC: 
BCC: 
Sent on: 
Sent from the Internet (Details) 
********************************************************************
SETI@home completes the switch to BOINC
----------------------------------------------------
SETI@home has completed its transition to BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure
for Network Computing). BOINC, developed at U.C. Berkeley, is a framework for
volunteer computing projects like SETI@home.

Switching your computer to the new "SETI@home/BOINC" is easy. Visit
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu for instructions. We'll be shutting down the
"SETI@home Classic" project on December 15. The workunit totals of users and
teams will be frozen at that point, and the final totals will be available on
the web.

Scientists at other universities are using BOINC to create volunteer computing
projects in areas like molecular biology, high-energy physics, and climate
change study. See http://boinc.berkeley.edu for more information. BOINC lets
you donate computer time to multiple causes, divided up however you want. For
example, your PC could spend 40% of its time searching for extraterrestrial
life (SETI@home), 30% studying climate change (http://climateprediction.net),
and 30% studying protein folding, design and docking (Rosetta@home:
http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/).

You can run SETI@home 100% of the time if you want. But we strongly encourage
you to participate in other projects. Doing so ensures that when SETI@home is
down or has no work, your computer stays busy helping other researchers.

Support SETI@home
----------------------------------------------------
SETI@home is increasingly reliant on individual donations. Without the support
of individuals like you the project will not be able to continue. We urge all
SETI@home participants to make a yearly donation to keep the project going:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/donate.php

----------------------------------------------------
Thanks again for your participation in SETI@home.

The SETI@home Team
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu
quote]

[Nemesis]

The SETI EMAIL has arrived

Not in my mail box.

[The Postman]

from tech news

November 22, 2005 - 21:30 UTC
We began sending out the mass e-mail yesterday warning SETI@home classic users that we are going to close down the old project on December 15th. It was sent to all 200,000 of the active classic users by this morning. Inactive classic users are being e-mailed at this point.
Due to the influx of new BOINC users (and the unfortunate timing of some googlebots and other web spiders) the load on our web server was extremely high for the past 12 hours. To fix this, we finally deployed a second web server to split the load. As DNS updates spread throughout the internet, the load on klaatu (the original single web server) decreases while the load on penguin (the new secondary web server) increases. Both are Sun D220R's (2 x 440MHz Sparc, 2 GB RAM).

Part of the problem was that the web servers were configured to spawn more many clients than actually necessary, which left lingering, unused threads open on the database, which in turn lead to the database running out of connections. Some users saw messages to this effect when the load on the web servers was at its highest.

This looked like a database problem, when in fact we are currently enjoying a 10% performance boost on the database. Last week we moved some memory off the myisam tables (which contain web forum info and not much else) and slated it for the innodb tables (which contain user, host, result, workunit, etc. tables). The myisam tables didn't need the excess memory.

By the way, the master database merge (see below) is currently on for the beginning of next week

[Nemesis]

I still haven't gotten the E-Mail from SETI but my SETIQueue is now delivering the message:

You are running a client from the original SETI@home project. This project will be shutting down on 12/15/2005. Please join the new SETI@Home project at http: // setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/

The voice error message from SETIQueue was unlike any I have heard from it before and doesn't even hint that there is a message from SETI.

[Darth Sidious]

It's been a long run.

I've had to hang up turning in units midyear, and with only my home boxes (already processor light); running seti full time wasnt an option.

[The Postman]

Anybody else see the transmit passes getting bogged down on classic?

[Sirgod]

question for you gentlemen, Do you want a new Thread for the Seti topic stickied? I was just looking and this one is getting pretty large. It's all up to you guys, just let me know If It would help you out.

Stephen

[The Postman]

question for you gentlemen, Do you want a new Thread for the Seti topic stickied? I was just looking and this one is getting pretty large. It's all up to you guys, just let me know If It would help you out.

Stephen

Nah, Thanks for the thought though. This version of SETI is going to have it's final swan song on 12/15. As soon as the final stats are done, I am going to post them here as a final record of what the team did. I would say that after 1/1/06, it could be unstuck and it can slide into the great unknown. If any other team member has some thoughts on this, speak up now. The other smaller thread is current and will continue to be used for BOINC messages.

[Nemesis]

Anybody else see the transmit passes getting bogged down on classic?

Yep.

[Sirgod]

question for you gentlemen, Do you want a new Thread for the Seti topic stickied? I was just looking and this one is getting pretty large. It's all up to you guys, just let me know If It would help you out.

Stephen

Nah, Thanks for the thought though. This version of SETI is going to have it's final swan song on 12/15. As soon as the final stats are done, I am going to post them here as a final record of what the team did. I would say that after 1/1/06, it could be unstuck and it can slide into the great unknown. If any other team member has some thoughts on this, speak up now. The other smaller thread is current and will continue to be used for BOINC messages.

Hey no problem at all, I'm looking forward to you you guys keeping the SETI thing going.

Stephen

[Nemesis]

Hey no problem at all, I'm looking forward to you you guys keeping the SETI thing going.

Stephen

We should replace the energizer bunny in the ads. We keep going for year after year.

[RazalYllib]

I went boinc some time ago and only recently transfered the wife's box to boinc. Come tax return time, it will be time to purchase a new machine!. Got my eye on a duel slot mb that might be just the thing I must have. It's rather substantial number crunching potential will increase my WU total. My spouse will get my box, her's will then get a wipe/refurbish and become my new file/dns server. I have the extra IP I am paying for, just do not have the hardware to plug in yet. I should be then able to easily afford a bare bones box to run the OP server on. If all goes well by this time next year, I could have 5 boxes crunching and crunching...

[Nemesis]

With a day to spare Classic is working correctly again.  After uploading hundreds of processed and stored WUs I have reached the top 4000.

Name (and URL)    IKV Nemesis
Results Received    42376
Total CPU Time    16.462 years
Average CPU Time per work unit    3 hr 24 min 11.1 sec
Average results received per day    29.76
Last result returned:   Wed Dec 14 01:32:13 2005 UTC

Your rank: (based on current workunits received)
Your rank out of 5436301 total users is:    3961st place.
The number of users who have this rank:    1
You have completed more work units than    99.927% of our users.

[The Postman]

With a day to spare Classic is working correctly again.  After uploading hundreds of processed and stored WUs I have reached the top 4000.

Name (and URL)    IKV Nemesis
Results Received    42376
Total CPU Time    16.462 years
Average CPU Time per work unit    3 hr 24 min 11.1 sec
Average results received per day    29.76
Last result returned:   Wed Dec 14 01:32:13 2005 UTC

Your rank: (based on current workunits received)
Your rank out of 5436301 total users is:    3961st place.
The number of users who have this rank:    1
You have completed more work units than    99.927% of our users.

Congratulations   At least one of us is going to make his goals. I, on the other hand, am going to come up short of 15K and have slipped into 3rd place in my class lists (I think).

[The Postman]

On December 15, 2005, after 6 years of operation, Classic SETI@home sent out its last workunit. The current SETI@home project is up and running. Please join us! The new software uses the BOINC distributed computing platform, which enables your computer to work on other scientific endeavors like SETI@home if you wish. We could all use your CPU cycles! It's easy to switch over - just follow the instructions on the new SETI@home web site. We hope to see everyone there!
At the time of shutdown, the stats for this project will be frozen but will continue to be available on the web. It may take several weeks to clean everything up and syncronize the classic stats with the current SETI@home project.

Thanks to all original SETI@home participants for their tremendous dedication to the project. You made SETI@home into something of lasting significance

[Nemesis]

They are still accepting WUs and as long as they do I will keep processing and sending my cache.

[Nemesis]

I'm going to use SETI 1 to "burn in" my new laptop (just bought).  It should give me a fairly good idea of how the Turion 64 CPU performs relative to my Athlon XPs.  Given my cache I can do the burn in even if SETI 1 stops taking the WU returns.

[The Postman]

I have not been able to Upload even one since they pulled the plug. I still have 20 in my cache.