October 13, 2005
HFS helps science; you can, too
As an astronomy major, Ethan Owens saw student and faculty computers within the department being used to study galaxy formation and orbital mechanics. Using multiple computers to work on such a project is called grid computing. The famous Seti@home project is a prime example, with thousands of individual computers involved in searching for intelligent life in the Cosmos.
Owens didn’t forget what he learned after he graduated and started working in the Department of Housing and Food Services (HFS) as a senior computing specialist. Indeed, he developed the idea to offer time on 200 HFS computers via grid computing to campus researchers who had limited resources.
“Being originally from the department, I asked astronomy, but they decided they didn’t need any additional computers,” remembers Owens. He did get a lead though: The Baker Lab in the Department of Biochemistry.
Owens got in contact with David Baker, associate professor of biochemistry, the lead researcher for Rosetta, a research project that makes use of grid computing to predict and design protein structures with the goal to develop prediction methods that may ultimately help researchers develop cures for human diseases such as cancer, HIV/AIDS and malaria.
For Baker, adding the computer power of 200 Housing and Food Services computers was a welcome addition to his project. The Baker lab was running its own grid of internal servers with no outside parties involved. “Our research efforts are completely limited by the amount of computing power available,” said Baker. “More computing power means more scientific problems can be solved to higher accuracy.”
The linkage with HFS was created during the summer. Essentially, when HFS computers are not being used, software collects the unused resources and utilizes them for research. Each computer downloads a bundle of work, proceeds on that calculation, and returns its results to the Baker lab’s server.
The software is called BOINC, for Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing, and was configured to run Rosetta by David Kim, a research scientist in biochemistry, who also created the Baker lab Web site. the software does not function when HFS staff are using the computers, nor does it impact the functionality of the workstations.
Owens is also promoting the BOINC concept among HFS student housing residents to see if they want to link their own computers to the Rosetta Project. “It’s easy to do, and with nearly all students having computers, we could add up to 5,000 more to the project,” said Owens. “To add some fun, we’ll be having the students form teams based on the halls they live in to see who has the highest degree of participation.”
In addition to the HFS computers, other systems on campus are becoming available to the project. Educational Partnerships and Learning Technologies’ Catalyst group, which operates major computing labs in Odegaard, Mary Gates Hall, and systems in many Libraries, is bringing nearly 1,000 workstations to the project over autumn quarter.
As the researchers make progress, announcements will go up on the lab’s Web site at http://www.bakerlab.org/.
“We ask all members of the UW community to consider contributing unused CPU cycles to solving biomedical research problems,” said Baker. “Installation is easy from the Web site listed below, and in extensive tests, Ethan has found no adverse effects on computer performance, since BOINC shuts down completely when the computer is being used for anything else. You can help increase the pace of scientific discovery at absolutely no cost!”
For more information about the Rosetta project, go to this link: http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta.
– Marty Perlman, Housing and Food Services
