Project News - MilkyWay@Home

[chooka03]

I agree DM!
Do you know why the server/database goes down usually every 24hrs? It's bloody annoying.
Lets hope it fixes things

[Dataman]

I agree DM!
Do you know why the server/database goes down usually every 24hrs? It's bloody annoying.
Lets hope it fixes things

I think they bring them down early in the AM (eastern time) to run a cleanup job otherwise they run out of space. They were down all weekend because of some power upgrade at the university. They have been up since then.

[Dataman]

If you are running MW, check your invalids. Since the last outage the invalids are about 8-10%. I have set the project to "no new tasks" until they resolve it.

EDIT: Also they received their new server today so expect some downtime over the next few days.

[Daniel]

MilkyWay@home was featured in an Astrobites article earlier this month ...

A supercomputer made of idle CPUs rewinds stellar streams

[Dataman]

The project has published a new paper:

https://milkyway.cs.rpi.edu/milkyway/forum_thread.php?id=4839#71760 

[chooka03]

Well there goes another GPU project!
Guess that's the end of Milkyway for me. I don't bother with CPU work.

Separation Project Coming To An End
Dear Volunteers,

We are beginning to sunset the Separation project (note that this is different from the N-Body project, which still needs your help!!!). Thanks to your computational contributions, we have completed the goals that we set out to accomplish with this the project, so we are going to shut down the Separation project in the near future. We are planning on submitting a paper containing the final results of the Separation project to an academic journal in the near future. It is possible that the reviewer may request revisions that involve re-running Separation data, in which case we might bring it back for a short time, but until that happens we do not need your computer time for this. We would like to sincerely thank you for all the time and effort that you spent helping us complete this substantial task. We owe the success of the project to you all.

With this announcement comes a few updates to MilkyWay@home: MilkyWay@home will continue to exist, but only as the Nbody project. Because of the complexity of running Nbody tree codes on GPUs, there is little speed-up from running Nbody on a GPU compared to an equivalent CPU. Although we did beta-test a full GPU Nbody application, we have decided not to deploy it due to concerns over maintaining its support; among other issues, supporting GPU Nbody would require changing the GPU code every time the CPU code is updated, and making sure every change is tested and works identically on both platforms. Since we are actively working on extensions of the Nbody code that include such things as the effects of the Large Magellanic Cloud's gravity and the consequences of self-interacting dark matter on the formation of tidal streams, this parallel support would be difficult. So, when Separation shuts down, we will be ending GPU support for MilkyWay@home. This will have the greatest impact on people who crunch lots of Separation work units on high-end GPUs; these users can expect to earn a much lower amount of credit per time than they did before. If you contribute only CPU cycles, your ability to earn credit will be unaffected. We still want as many people to contribute CPU time to MilkyWay@home as possible! However, we understand that if your goal is to use GPUs to obtain a large amount of credit quickly, there are more efficient ways to do this and other projects that can better use your resources.

We would appreciate your input on this because we expect that it will probably take some time for GPU-oriented users to swap that hardware over to different projects. How long would you like us to wait before we shut down Separation?

Again, thank you so much for letting us use your processors! They have not only increased our knowledge of the Milky Way galaxy that we live in, but they have also contributed to five PhD theses and trained dozens of undergraduate students to build and maintain large and complex computing systems. These students and I thank you for your contributions. We will be posting the results of the final Separation project results probably later this year, after they have gone through the peer review process (which takes about six months on average, with wide variability).

Best,
Tom & Prof. Newberg

[Dingo]

[Milkyway@home] Commenting on Recent Issues with the server
Hello everyone,

I wanted to apologize for the recent server issues. The migration brought unforeseen challenges, particularly with DNS changes. As a newcomer to server management and BOINC projects, I've been on a steep learning curve to transition this project to a new server.

As mentioned in a previous post, and reiterated here, we have set up a temporary DNS entry for milkyway-new that now points to the server. The changes will take some time to become effective (I don't have a specific timeline, but I'm closely monitoring the process). This update will allow for downloading older work units linked to milkyway-new and uploading completed ones.

I'm immensely grateful to all the volunteers who have suggested fixes and assisted others with client-side issues. Your contributions have significantly accelerated problem-solving during this server migration. I can't thank you enough for your support.

To those who have voiced frustrations, I apologize for any shortcomings in my expertise. I recognize the value of the computing time you generously volunteer and understand your desire for acknowledgment of your contributions. I encourage you to continue sharing your concerns, as long as they are respectful. Destructive or derogatory comments don't contribute constructively to our project. We aim to foster a positive environment at MilkyWay@home for everyone passionate about science and distributed computing, free from unnecessary negativity.

One common concern has been the need for better communication. Despite my efforts to preemptively share updates, it appears more is needed. I would like to improve in this area. I'm considering regular updates (weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly) and would appreciate your thoughts on this. Please share your ideas in the comments on how I could improve communication.

On a related note, we are excited to announce that we're currently developing a new version of the n-body code. This upgrade will allow for the fitting of additional parameters, such as orbit parameters, along with other minor improvements. We anticipate implementing these changes in the coming weeks.
Additionally, we are making plans to reintroduce support for Mac users. More details will be provided as soon as we have further information.

Once again, I apologize for the recent issues with MilkyWay@home and am very thankful for your patience.

Best regards,
Kevin

View article · Wed, 29 Nov 2023 22:02:25 +0000

[Dingo]

[Milkyway@home] Admin Updates
Hello everyone,

This thread will be used as a place for project admins to post updates.
If you have a comment or a question, you should post those in the appropriate threads.
There is also an Admin Updates Discussion thread for further discussion on the updates.

Thank you,
Kevin

View article · Fri, 15 Dec 2023 19:56:07 +0000