BOINC Central: Difference between revisions
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| released = {{Start date and age|2021|11|26}} | | released = {{Start date and age|2021|11|26}} | ||
| completed = | | completed = Boolean Chains | ||
| discontinued = | | discontinued = | ||
| repository = | | repository = | ||
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| license = Open-source software ([[wikipedia:GNU Lesser General Public License|LGPL]]) | | license = Open-source software ([[wikipedia:GNU Lesser General Public License|LGPL]]) | ||
}} | }} | ||
[https://boinc.berkeley.edu/central/ '''''BOINC Central'''''] is a BOINC project. A system for '''''[[Wikipedia:Volunteer computing|volunteer computing]]''''', allowing people around the world to donate computing power to science research. | [https://boinc.berkeley.edu/central/ '''''BOINC Central'''''] is a BOINC project. A system for '''''[[Wikipedia:Volunteer computing|volunteer computing]]''''', allowing people around the world to donate computing power to science research. | ||
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== Overview == | == Overview == | ||
BOINC Central gives scientists access to the power of volunteer computing without having to operate a BOINC server. It was publicly launched on '''26 November 2021'''<ref>{{cite web |url=https://boinc.berkeley.edu/central/ |title=Welcome to BOINC Central |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |date=26 November 2021 |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> and is operated by the [[Wikipedia:University of California, Berkeley|University of California, Berkeley]] BOINC project, under the direction of research scientist [[Wikipedia:David P. Anderson|David P. Anderson]]. | BOINC Central gives scientists access to the power of volunteer computing without having to operate a BOINC server. It was publicly launched on '''26 November 2021'''<ref>{{cite web |url=https://boinc.berkeley.edu/central/ |title=Welcome to BOINC Central |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |date=26 November 2021 |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> and is operated by the [[Wikipedia:University of California, Berkeley|University of California, Berkeley]] BOINC project, under the direction of research scientist [[Wikipedia:David P. Anderson|David P. Anderson]]. | ||
[[File:BOINC Manager Screenshot.jpg|thumb|The BOINC platform, which BOINC Central runs on, was originally developed to support SETI@home.]] | [[File:BOINC Manager Screenshot.jpg|thumb|The BOINC platform, which BOINC Central runs on, was originally developed to support SETI@home.|514x514px]] | ||
The project is one of approximately 26 projects listed on BOINC's official roster as of early 2026.<ref name=boinc-wikipedia>{{cite web |url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Open_Infrastructure_for_Network_Computing |title=Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing |publisher=Wikipedia |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> Unlike other BOINC projects that serve a single research team, BOINC Central acts as a '''shared scientific computing service''' – a central hub where multiple independent scientists can submit workloads without having to build or maintain their own volunteer-computing infrastructure. | The project is one of approximately 26 projects listed on BOINC's official roster as of early 2026.<ref name=boinc-wikipedia>{{cite web |url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Open_Infrastructure_for_Network_Computing |title=Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing |publisher=Wikipedia |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> Unlike other BOINC projects that serve a single research team, BOINC Central acts as a '''shared scientific computing service''' – a central hub where multiple independent scientists can submit workloads without having to build or maintain their own volunteer-computing infrastructure. | ||
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==== Milestones and Results ==== | ==== Milestones and Results ==== | ||
The Boolean Chains project reached a significant milestone in May 2025: the search space for N=15, L=21 was exhausted. Over the course of the project, '''37,444,981,252,103,000 chains were generated''', consuming 2,139 days of computing time.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://boinc.berkeley.edu/central/ |title=Boolean Chains project reaches milestone |publisher=BOINC Central |date=31 May 2025 |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> The project was subsequently completed, with volunteers having supplied the equivalent of '''450 CPU-years''' of computing power.<ref name=central-news>{{cite web |url=https://boinc.berkeley.edu/central/ |title=BOINC Central project updates |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |date=24 March 2026 |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> | The Boolean Chains project reached a significant milestone in May 2025: the search space for N=15, L=21 was exhausted. Over the course of the project, '''37,444,981,252,103,000 chains were generated''', consuming 2,139 days of computing time.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://boinc.berkeley.edu/central/ |title=Boolean Chains project reaches milestone |publisher=BOINC Central |date=31 May 2025 |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> The project was subsequently completed, with volunteers having supplied the equivalent of '''450 CPU-years''' of computing power.<ref name=central-news>{{cite web |url=https://boinc.berkeley.edu/central/ |title=BOINC Central project updates |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |date=24 March 2026 |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> | ||
=== Cislunar Orbit Stability Analyzer (completed) === | |||
The '''Cislunar Orbit Stability Analyzer''' project studied the stability of orbits in the Earth/Moon system.<ref name=central-news/> The project was led by Lezhe Gao, an astrodynamics researcher at [[wikipedia:Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory|Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory]] specializing in cislunar mechanics. Like Boolean Chains, the project used the BUDA framework to run its computations across the BOINC Central volunteer network.<ref name=central-news/> | |||
==== Results ==== | |||
The project has since been completed, and the research led to a scientific paper that was in peer review as of March 2026.<ref name=central-news/> The BOINC Central team noted that the project, like Boolean Chains, involved solving scaling challenges related to large job batches and multi-gigabyte output file downloads.<ref name=central-news/> | |||
== Technical Infrastructure == | == Technical Infrastructure == | ||
[[File:Cd20.png|thumb|AutoDock Vina is used for molecular docking and virtual drug screening.|330x330px]] | |||
=== AutoDock Vina === | === AutoDock Vina === | ||
[[Wikipedia:AutoDock Vina|AutoDock Vina]] is an open-source program for molecular docking originally designed by Dr. Oleg Trott at the Molecular Graphics Lab (now the Center for Computational Structural Biology, CCSB) at [[Wikipedia:The Scripps Research Institute|The Scripps Research Institute]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://vina.scripps.edu/ |title=AutoDock Vina |publisher=The Scripps Research Institute |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> It is one of the most widely used tools in computational drug discovery, allowing researchers to predict how small molecules (potential drug candidates) bind to protein receptors. AutoDock Vina achieves roughly a two-orders-of-magnitude speed increase over earlier versions while improving the accuracy of binding mode predictions, and leverages multithreading across CPU cores.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3041641/ |title=AutoDock Vina: improving the speed and accuracy of docking with a new scoring function, efficient optimization and multithreading |journal=Journal of Computational Chemistry |year=2010 |volume=31 |pages=455–461 |doi=10.1002/jcc.21334}}</ref> | [[Wikipedia:AutoDock Vina|AutoDock Vina]] is an open-source program for molecular docking originally designed by Dr. Oleg Trott at the Molecular Graphics Lab (now the Center for Computational Structural Biology, CCSB) at [[Wikipedia:The Scripps Research Institute|The Scripps Research Institute]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://vina.scripps.edu/ |title=AutoDock Vina |publisher=The Scripps Research Institute |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> It is one of the most widely used tools in computational drug discovery, allowing researchers to predict how small molecules (potential drug candidates) bind to protein receptors. AutoDock Vina achieves roughly a two-orders-of-magnitude speed increase over earlier versions while improving the accuracy of binding mode predictions, and leverages multithreading across CPU cores.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3041641/ |title=AutoDock Vina: improving the speed and accuracy of docking with a new scoring function, efficient optimization and multithreading |journal=Journal of Computational Chemistry |year=2010 |volume=31 |pages=455–461 |doi=10.1002/jcc.21334}}</ref> | ||
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=== The BOINC Platform === | === The BOINC Platform === | ||
BOINC (pronounced {{IPAc-en|b|ɔɪ|ŋ|k}}, rhyming with "oink") is an open-source middleware system for volunteer computing developed at the [[Wikipedia:UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory|UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory]]. As of 2021 it brought together 34,236 active participants employing 136,341 active computers worldwide, processing on average 20.164 [[Wikipedia:PetaFLOPS|PetaFLOPS]] daily.<ref name=boinc-wikipedia/> It supports applications across medicine, molecular biology, mathematics, linguistics, climatology, environmental science, and astrophysics. BOINC Central is listed among the projects available to the Android BOINC mobile client.<ref name=boinc-wikipedia/> | BOINC (pronounced {{IPAc-en|b|ɔɪ|ŋ|k}}, rhyming with "oink") is an open-source middleware system for volunteer computing developed at the [[Wikipedia:UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory|UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory]]. As of 2021 it brought together 34,236 active participants employing 136,341 active computers worldwide, processing on average 20.164 [[Wikipedia:PetaFLOPS|PetaFLOPS]] daily.<ref name=boinc-wikipedia/> It supports applications across medicine, molecular biology, mathematics, linguistics, climatology, environmental science, and astrophysics. BOINC Central is listed among the projects available to the Android BOINC mobile client.<ref name=boinc-wikipedia/> | ||
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== How to Participate == | == How to Participate == | ||
[[File:BOINC logo.png|right|frameless|150x150px]] | |||
Volunteers can contribute computing power by: | Volunteers can contribute computing power by: | ||
# Downloading and installing the [https://boinc.berkeley.edu/ BOINC client] | # Downloading and installing the [https://boinc.berkeley.edu/ BOINC client] | ||