HUGE borg opportunity! Proposal help needed.

[Yamaki]

EDIT 5:00PM 2/5/08 --FINAL DRAFT--

Hey all.

After school today, I decided to propose the idea of Folding@Home running on our school computers to the netadmin. The computers are on 24/7 and there are about 40 total borgable:
~25 P4 3.2GHz [HT on]
~15 P4 2GHz [no HT]
EDIT: ~20 P4 2.5GHz laptops
That's about 160GHz of potential folding power in the school, with 40 computers being a conservative estimate.

When I went to propose it to him, I got really nervous and my speech was super choppy. He asked what the program did and my first explanation was "It soaks up the, uh, CPU when it isn't in use, you know like on the computers." Long story short I got myself together to wrap up the explanation and he now has a basic idea of what folding is. He ended up telling me that he'll seriously consider it if I e-mailed him a business-like proposal stating what the program does and why it should be installed.

This is where you guys come in. By Monday, I'd like to have a clearly written proposal with references and compelling points regarding why he should install F@H on the school network. It would also be great if we could set up a simple plan for deploying it over the network. My guess is that it would be installed as a service...One console client on the HT machines and one console client on the 2GHz machines. All of the computers mentioned have VNC installed for remote access.

The letter will be updated hourly, posted under this line. LAST UPDATE: 5:00PM 2/5/08

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Hello Chris,

I would like to re-attempt my proposal for installing Folding@Home on the school network. I was a bit nervous the first time around, and I probably did not make much sense, so I'd like to state what I said differently.

I've been into Stanford University's Folding@Home project for over four years. I started my career with assistance from the helpful folks at the HardOCP Forums and since then have completed over 1,600 work units for Stanford University. I have dedicated much of my spare time and money to building more machines to run the Folding@Home client; more machines to work for the cause. This week, in fact, I will be building two more dual-core machines for the sole purpose of running Folding@Home. It is my goal to contribute as much to the project as I possibly can.

This proposal is intended to explain protein folding, what Folding@Home is and what the computers at school can do to help.

Proteins play a vital role in all of biology, and in order for proteins to do their job correctly, they must first assemble themselves, or “fold”. The focus of this project is discovering exactly how these proteins fold. In doing so, researchers and scientists will then have the information they need to help develop cures for many devastating and life threatening diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and Mad Cow, as well as many forms of cancer. All of these diseases are caused when proteins fold incorrectly, or misfold.

The reason this program exists is due to the sheer size of the project. It takes tremendous amounts of computer processing power to simulate the thousands of different ways that millions of different proteins can fold. No single computer or cluster of networked computers has the power to accomplish this task alone.

Folding@Home is a distributed computing project. It is a small piece of software that enables almost any computer connected to the internet help unlock the mysteries of proteins. It uses the computer’s unused processor cycles to simulate the ways in which proteins fold through “work units” downloaded directly from Stanford’s databases. Once the unit is completed, the results are returned to Stanford, and a new unit is downloaded. This occurs once every few days and is typically under 5MB in size.

This is where you can help. I would like to have your permission to work with you to install and maintain Folding@Home on the school’s computers.

The software is unobtrusive, and will not affect the performance of the computer it is installed on. It runs in the background using an ‘idle’ process priority. The largest part of the work itself is done when the computer would otherwise be idle, and the software automatically throttles itself down when there is other work for the computer to do.

Folding@Home is a very small piece of software, it’s very safe, and the typical computer user will not even know it’s been installed. It’s most effective when the computer is left on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It can be installed to run as a service, starting itself automatically when Windows boots up, and automatically shutting itself down with no user input required. Once the software is installed and configured to run optimally within your requirements, the only maintenance necessary is a periodic check up to ensure that none of the work packets have “hung” (all clients can be monitored over the network from one computer using a small piece of software called FAHMon). I will volunteer my personal time to perform this maintenance, as well as bi-yearly client updates.

Some of the larger organizations that participate in the program are Google, Dell, Apple, Intel, ATI, The National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Sony has worked very closely with Stanford, and in the last year a client has been developed that allows PlayStation 3 owners to use their gaming consoles to run Folding@Home as well.

I hope I have been able to answer any questions that you may have regarding Folding@Home, however, if you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or this address.

Thank you for your time and interest in this project, and I’ll be looking forward to your response.

Signed,
Arman Dezfuli-Arjomandi

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I would like to give a HUGE thanks to digital_exhaust who sent me his proposal letter from his borg at the vet's clinic. Much of it has been merged into this letter.

Any improvements, additions, corrections, etc. are very much appreciated!

Thanks! FOR THE HORDE!

-Yama

 

[Imitation]

Those P4's with HT won't come close to making the SMP deadlines, run the regular console instead. Leaving HT on is perfectly fine, no need to turn it off.

 

[Axdrenalin]

I would use the general explaination listed on the main Folding site at Stanford University. Let them know that by allowing the use of those compuers to be used for folding, they are helping to advance the knowledge and science about protiens, and how that knowledge can be of use in the search for cures.

You may also want to let them know that the folding program will only use the processor primarily when it is idle, so it shouldn't have a great effect on every day use during the business day.

Its a great cause, and hopefully they will allow you to load them up.

 

[Xilikon]

Those P4's with HT won't come close to making the SMP deadlines, run the regular console instead. Leaving HT on is perfectly fine, no need to turn it off.

Agreed, install console clients only on all the machines. Even if you turn only250-300 ppd per machine, it's still a big contribution when you multiply by 40 Look at FLECOM's farm, almost none is SMP due to the environment of the borgs.

 

[Yamaki]

Agreed, install console clients only on all the machines. Even if you turn only250-300 ppd per machine, it's still a big contribution when you multiply by 40 Look at FLECOM's farm, almost none is SMP due to the environment of the borgs.

Edited to reflect changes, and started writing the letter.

 

[owkia]

Even with HT on, aren't you only supposed to run ONE standard client on those P4s? Task manager will show 50% CPU usage, but they will in fact be using 100%.

 

[Mohonri]

Even with HT on, aren't you only supposed to run ONE standard client on those P4s? Task manager will show 50% CPU usage, but they will in fact be using 100%.

That's correct. And that's the way Stanford want you to run it. They prefer to get results faster than in larger numbers.

Here's a stab at something you might say:

"Folding@Home is a scientific research program headed by Stanford University. The research focuses primarily on simulating how proteins in the body 'fold', or assemble themselves. When proteins do not fold correctly, there can be serious consequences, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers.

The Folding simulations are performed by a large, distributed network of computers, mostly privately owned. Computer owners and administrators voluntarily run the Folding@Home software. The Folding@Home client operates by downloading a work packet from Stanford's servers, performing the simulations, and uploading the results. It runs silently as a service, and runs as 'idle' priority, so it only occupies the CPU when no other processes are requesting CPU time. As a result, there is no impact on usability or responsiveness for a user on the computer.

That's the good news. There are a few caveats and possible concerns that people sometimes express, so I'd like to address them up front.
--Because the F@H client uses the CPU whenever it's available, the CPU will always be running at 100% utilization. As a result, the computer will consume more power than it would without F@H. Rough estimates place this number at about 30W additional per machine, but the actual number will vary with the type and speed of processor. As long as the CPU heatsink is not clogged with dust, this poses no issue. --Running the CPU at 100% all the time will not 'wear out' or shorten the lifespan of the CPU.
--The F@H client will also consume some amount of RAM, which can be configured while installing the client.
--The F@H client periodically contacts the servers at Stanford to request work and return results. For each computer, this typically amounts to less than 5MB and occurs once every couple days. All communication takes place over port 80. Depending on the network configuration, steps may need to be taken to ensure that the client has connectivity.

If you have concerns about deploying the Folding@Home client across all the computers at once, I would propose that we do a test run on two or three machines. After two weeks, if no problems have been encountered, we can proceed and install Folding@Home on the remaining computers."

Hopefully that will give you a good start. This sounds like a great project!

 

[Yamaki]

bump for final draft.

 

[schenks]

That looks pretty good....I applaud your efforts in attempting to get this through, and wish you the best of luck in pushing for it

 

[digital_exhaust]

Glad I could help, and you did a really good job with the letter....

Here's to two new [H]Borgs!!

Oh... and be sure to keep us updated!

 

[Mohonri]

Looking good. One minor nitpick-- "bi-yearly" isn't a real word. You're probably looking for "biannual".