SETI@home, a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), consists of many interconnected programs – screensaver, data server, web-page scripts, and so on. This software has served remarkably well, but over time major limitations and flaws in its design have emerged.
To support future projects SETI@home is developing theBerkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC). Like the original SETI@home, BOINC consists of a client program and a data-distribution server backed by a database. BOINC, however, is not a specific application program – it’s a framework that can support many different applications. This will make it easy for SETI@home to run multiple computations simultaneously – likeAstroPulseand theirsouthern hemisphere search– and to release new versions of these applications without requiring you to manually download and install software.
Even more significantly, BOINC is an open system. Other science projects can create their own distributed computations using BOINC. You choose the projects in which to participate, and you decide how much of your computing resources should go to each project. Your PC might search for ET, study global climate change, and do biological research, all at the same time.
Ars Technica’sTeam Lamb Chopis participating in SETI@home with over 5,000 members and is thenumber one teamfor over a year now. Unfortunately their big competitors, SETI.Germany and SETI@Netherlands, are outproducing them by two to one. IfTeam Lamb Chopdoes not get help soon they will loose their number one position by December. If you want to help them to hold first place seehere.
For more information about our distributed computing teams seeThe Ars Technica Distributed Computing Food Courtand ourDistributed Computing Forum.
