A Social Cloud for Public eResearch

Koshy John Kris Bubendorfer Kyle ChardSchool of Engineering and

Computer ScienceVictoria University of Wellington

Wellington, New Zealand

School of Engineering and Computer Science

Victoria University of WellingtonWellington, New Zealand

Computation Institute,University of Chicago and

Argonne National LaboratoryChicago, IL, USA

Public eResearch

• A cure for cancer? AIDS?• Better cryptographic systems?• Investigating climate change?• Searching for intelligent life out there?• What do they have in common?

eResearch with BOINC

• Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing• Using BOINC for inexpensive computation• Unused resources for worthy causes• Making science accessible• But is it achieving its potential?

Facebook Statistics

• On average, people on Facebook install apps more than 20 million times every day

• Every month, more than 500 million people use an app on Facebook or experience Facebook Platform on other websites

• More than 7 million apps and websites are integrated with Facebook

BOINC Statistics• BOINC projects have just 2.3 million users in total• Only ~0.5 million are actively contributing

https://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

But…• BOINC marshals 5.5 petaflops from 0.5 million

Imagine if…

• Even 1% of Facebook’s user base joined & contributed actively• That’s 8 million users vs. the current 0.5 million• 90 petaflops?? – ballpark figure

At 10% and with hardware advances, we hit EXASCALE computing.A viable solution to what Brian P. Schmidt asked of eScience??

What’s holding BOINC back?

• Lack of visibility• Barriers to entry for new users• Lack of ease in identifying and joining new projects• Low visibility for new projects• Low levels of active contribution

A Social Cloud

“A Social Cloud is a resource and service sharing framework utilizing relationships and policies established between members of a social network.” – Kris Bubendorfer

A Social Cloud for Public eResearch• A Facebook application• Increasing awareness• Making use of social relationships• Truly bringing science to the people• Potential for growth – going viral

• How is this better than just BOINC? 800million

Deep Facebook Integration

• The Graph API – read/write• The OpenGraph Protocol – entities as objects• Social Channels– News feed– Requests– Notifications

Social Engineering (part I)

• Easing the Process of Joining– Interest Signature– Project Signature– Signature Distances (resource share)

Social Engineering (part II)• Incentivising Involvement, Contribution & Growth– Project Champions• Total project credits• Easier to become one of a less popular project• Encourages contribution• Champions the cause of a project – helps new users

Social Engineering (part II)• Incentivising Involvement, Contribution & Growth– Social Anchors• Social Values and Social Scores

• To motivate users to encourage their friends to join• Top bracket local to user’s social cloud

Social Engineering (part II)• Incentivising Involvement, Contribution & Growth– Compute Magnates• Rolling credit value, compute value, compute score

• Social pressure on friends to contribute• Top bracket local to user’s social cloud

Architecture

InteractionsSimple example of interactions between all actors associated with the Social Cloud for Public eResearch.

The Prototype

Results

• Verified interest signatures, project signatures and signature distances through a user study.

• Studied the effects of project champions, social anchors and compute magnates through simulations on the IEEE VAST 2009 Challenge dataset.

Results – Signatures (small sample)

Results – Project Champions

Results – Social Anchors

Results – Compute Magnates

How is the Social Cloud better?

• GridRepublic• Intel’s Progress Thru Processors

Conclusion• Increased visibility and engagement• More computational power for researchers• Science becomes meaningful to the masses• Brings lesser known projects into the limelight

• Science benefits. Humanity benefits.