BOINC

Simulation software such as Simul8 is used to study complex systems in many areas. Experimentation can be
time consuming. If a study requires many experiments, and each experiment requires multiple replications, then
even with short run times the overall time to perform the study can be large. If models take longer to run, then
this time can be excessive. Many organisations have commodity PCs that often remain idle or run applications
that do not demand the processing power of a typical contemporary PC. Volunteer Computing is a form of
Desktop Grid Computing that aims to use vast numbers of home computers to support computing applications.
The SZTAKI Desktop Grid (SZDG) uses a modified form of the volunteer computing software BOINC to
implement an institution-wide Desktop Grid. To investigate the feasibility of using Volunteer Computing with
Simul8, this paper reports on experiences of porting Simul8 to a SZDG.

In this paper we propose two new data models for BOINC: an approach based on the popular BitTorrent protocol; and a Content Delivery Network based approach. While the latter remains on a theoretical level, we developed a prototype that adds BitTorrent functionality for task distribution and conducted medium-scale tests of the environment. Our preliminary results indicate that the BitTorrent client had a negligible influence on the BOINC client’s computation time, even in the case where it was seeding extensively.
The BOINC server, on the contrary, showed an unexpectedly low bandwidth output when seeding the file, as well as spikes on CPU usage. Current results show the BitTorrent scenario allows clients to share the burden of data distribution on BOINC with almost no negative influence on compute time. This paper will discuss the tests that were performed, how they were evaluated, as well as some improvements that could be made in future research on both approaches.

This paper describes perspective platforms that can be used by BOINC
for distributed computing: mobile devices (Android, iOS, Windows
Phone) and video game consoles (Sony PlayStation, Microsoft Xbox
and Nintendo Wii/Switch). For now, BOINC supports Android devices
only. During this research, I’ve found that iOS is not suitable for our
purposes because of platform limitations and Windows Phone is not
suitable too because of low market share. Video game consoles are
more suitable for our purposes. Sony PlayStation, Microsoft Xbox
and Nintendo Wii/Switch a good enough to be supported by BOINC
distributed computing network.

In this paper we show how we applied BitTorrent data distribution techniques to the BOINC middleware. Our goal was to decentralize BOINC’s data model to take advantage of client network capabilities. To achieve this, we developed a prototype that adds BitTorrent functionality for task distribution and conducted small-scale tests of the environment. Additionally, we measured the impact of the BitTorrent components in both the BOINC client and server, and compared it with the original implementation. Our preliminary results indicate that the BitTorrent client had a negligible influence on the BOINC client’s computation time, even in the case where it was seeding extensively. The BOINC server, on the contrary, showed an unexpectedly low bandwidth output when seeding the file, as well as spikes on CPU usage. Current results show the BitTorrent scenario allows clients to share the burden of data distribution on BOINC with almost no negative influence on compute time. This paper will discuss the tests that were performed, how they were evaluated, as well as some improvements that could be made to future tests to enhance server-side efficiency.

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