Taiwan Desktop Grid
Taiwan Desktop Grid was a BOINC-based desktop grid and volunteer computing project operated by the Academia Sinica Grid Computing Centre (ASGC) in Taipei, Taiwan. Rather than developing a single dedicated scientific application of its own, the project functioned as a Taiwanese bridging node in a wider international infrastructure, connecting volunteered Asian and European desktop computers to applications supporting drug discovery, earthquake simulation and climate change research, among others, that had been ported to run across linked desktop and service grids.[3] Volunteers attached to the project by pointing the BOINC client at the address http://vbridge.twgrid.org/asgcdg/.[3] The project appears to have gone offline sometime between April 2014 and February 2015 and has not since been restored.[2]
History
Background: the Academia Sinica Grid Computing Centre
Academia Sinica, Taiwan's national academy, joined the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) project in 2002. The Academia Sinica Grid Computing Centre (ASGC) was subsequently established to provide grid computing services to scientists from various domains across Asia-Pacific countries.[3] Since 2005, ASGC has operated the only WLCG Tier-1 centre in Asia and has served as the Enabling Grids for E-sciencE (EGEE) Federation Coordinator, providing service, coordination and support to e-Science applications worldwide.[3]
Founding and DEGISCO
ASGC became a member of the International Desktop Grid Federation (IDGF), an organisation bringing together companies, universities and institutes involved in desktop grid computing, and represented Taiwan in the European Union-funded Desktop Grids for International Scientific Collaboration (DEGISCO) project.[3][4] DEGISCO, funded under the EU's Seventh Framework Programme (grant agreement 261561) and coordinated by the Hungarian research institute MTA SZTAKI, ran from 1 June 2010 to 31 May 2012.[5] Building on the earlier EDGeS project, DEGISCO used what was known as 3G Bridge technology to extend the existing European desktop-grid-to-service-grid infrastructure to International Cooperation Partner Countries, of which Taiwan was one, connecting local desktop grids to European service grids such as EGEE.[5] Taiwan Desktop Grid, run on BOINC server software from the address http://vbridge.twgrid.org/asgcdg/, was ASGC's contribution to this effort.[3]
The earliest applications recorded on the project's archived application list, a 3D rendering application and a laser simulation application, were installed on the server on 28 and 29 October 2010 respectively, marking the earliest confirmed activity on the project.[6] Over the following two years, the project accumulated more than a dozen further applications bridged in from the shared EDGeS/DEGISCO application repository, spanning fields including molecular docking, particle physics simulation, materials science and cosmic ray simulation.[6] The project's own homepage carried news items relating to DEGISCO project meetings, including the ISGC 2012 DEGISCO Workshop, held 27 February to 2 March 2012, and the DEGISCO project's fifth consortium meeting, held 28 to 30 May 2012 in Zaragoza, Spain.[3]
Discontinuation
The project's homepage was still functioning normally in an archived snapshot dated 23 April 2014, the last confirmed working capture of the site. A later snapshot from around 23 February 2015 instead returns only a database connection error, indicating the underlying BOINC server had gone offline sometime in the intervening months.[2] No working snapshot of the project has been found after this point, and Taiwan Desktop Grid is treated here as a completed, discontinued BOINC project.
Purpose
Because Taiwan Desktop Grid functioned primarily as a bridging node rather than hosting a single dedicated in-house research application, its research focus was largely defined by whichever applications were routed to it through the shared EDGeS, DEGISCO and IDGF infrastructure. According to the project's own description, this included applications supporting drug discovery, earthquake simulation and climate change research developed in Asia, as well as applications developed more broadly by IDGF members.[3]
Applications
The following applications were recorded on Taiwan Desktop Grid's application list as of an archived snapshot dated 25 August 2012. Installation dates refer to when each application version was first made available on the server, not necessarily when it remained actively assigning work; by the project's own account, many of these applications may not have stayed active for long.[6]
| Application | Earliest recorded installation | Supported platforms |
|---|---|---|
| upperCASE | — | — |
| Protein Molecule Simulation Application | 12 April 2011 | Linux (x86, x86_64/EM64T) |
| 3D Rendering Application | 28 October 2010 | Windows, Linux (x86, x86_64/EM64T) |
| Laser Application | 29 October 2010 | Windows, Linux (x86, x86_64/EM64T) |
| BinSys | 17 February 2011 | Windows (x86, x86_64/EM64T), Linux (x86), macOS (10.4+ Intel, 10.5+ 64-bit) |
| Patient Readmission Application | 21 February 2011 | Windows, Linux (x86) |
| Digital Alias-free Signal Processing Application | 17 February 2011 | Windows, Linux (x86, x86_64/EM64T) |
| SIMAP Utility Application | 17 February 2011 | Windows, Linux (x86, x86_64/EM64T) |
| UC-Explorer | 17 February 2011 | Windows, Linux (x86), macOS (10.4+ Intel, 10.5+ 64-bit) |
| VisIVO Server Application | 17 February 2011 | Windows, Linux (x86, x86_64/EM64T) |
| X-Ray Application | 17 February 2011 | Windows, Linux (x86, x86_64/EM64T) |
| merlin | 17 February 2011 | Linux (x86) |
| E-Marketplace Model Integrated with Logistics DG | 17 February 2011 | Windows, Linux (x86) |
| Fusion ITER | 3 May 2011 | Windows, Linux (x86, x86_64/EM64T) |
| AutoDock3 on cell worker | 11 April 2011 | Linux (x86, x86_64/EM64T) |
| CORSIKA Application | 17 June 2011 | Windows, Linux (x86) |
| AutoDock 3 | 18 May 2012 | Windows, Linux (x86, x86_64/EM64T) |
| Grid Virtual Screening Service | 20 April 2012 | Windows, Linux (x86, x86_64/EM64T) |
Several of these, including the CORSIKA cosmic ray shower simulator, the AutoDock molecular docking tools and Fusion ITER, correspond to standard applications distributed through the EDGeS/DEGISCO shared application repository, and were also bridged to other desktop grids connected to the same European service grid infrastructure rather than being developed specifically for Taiwan Desktop Grid.[5]
See also
References
- ↑ The exact launch date of Taiwan Desktop Grid is not documented. This date reflects the earliest application installation timestamp recorded on the project's archived application list, the 3D Rendering Application, installed 28 October 2010, used here as the best available proxy for the project becoming operational. Applications | Taiwan Desktop Grid. Academia Sinica Grid Computing Centre. Retrieved 25 July 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 The project's homepage was still loading normally in a Wayback Machine snapshot dated 23 April 2014, the last confirmed working capture. A later snapshot from around 23 February 2015 shows only a database connection error, indicating the underlying BOINC server had gone offline sometime in the intervening months. Wayback Machine capture history for vbridge.twgrid.org/asgcdg. Internet Archive. Retrieved 25 July 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Taiwan Desktop Grid. Academia Sinica Grid Computing Centre. Retrieved 25 July 2026.
- ↑ Members. International Desktop Grid Federation. Retrieved 25 July 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Desktop Grids for International Scientific Collaboration (DEGISCO). European Commission, CORDIS. Retrieved 25 July 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Applications | Taiwan Desktop Grid. Academia Sinica Grid Computing Centre. Retrieved 25 July 2026.