SuperComputingDelivered_16-Dec-2014_FINAL

Supercomputing Delivered

Georgetown University

School of Continuing Studies

MPTM 900

Annabel Berman

Kyle Facada

Tyler Gray

SUPERCOMPUTING DELIVERED

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Table of Contents

Forward 2

Abstract 4

Introduction 5

Company Overview 6

Proposed Solution 7

Technological Solution 8

Grid Computing and the Life Sciences 13

Current State of BOINC at Georgetown University 17

Business Plan 26

Management 36

Further Considerations 37

Conclusions 38

Appendix 40

● Technical Architecture-‐ Advanced “LATTICE” Implementation ● Reward Badges Available for WCG Participation / Individual Recognition ● Georgetown University Faculty / Staff BOINC Group ● Interview: Arnie Miles GU UIS & Adjunct Assistant Professor of Computer

Science ● Interview: Jennifer Smith Library Coordinator of Communications ● Email: Arnie Miles Email: Revisiting Expanding BOINC at GU ● Arnie Miles/Judd Nicholson: BOINC Georgetown Campus

Deployment Kick-‐Off Meeting ● Interview: Michael Cummings & Adam Bazinet; Pioneers for UMD-‐ The

Lattice Project ● Draft Email for Tony Cipriano, Written on Request of Georgetown University

CTO Judd Nicholson: ● Email: Notification from Arnie Miles that BOINC / WCG Rollout Has Started

Works Cited 55


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Forward

Some of the background research for this project has been derived from the

author’s previous research and efforts towards implementing Berkeley Open

Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) at Georgetown University, with

citations made as appropriate. These efforts, undertaken in 2013 as preparation for

this capstone project, have resulted in this project being able to take on a real-‐world

significance and purpose that would not have otherwise been possible. To this

effect, our initial submission to Georgetown University’s “H.Roundtables” online

question and answer served to identify and spark interest from three key faculty

members at Georgetown University: Mr. Judd Nicholson, Deputy Chief Information

Officer; Mr. Arnie Miles, IT Strategist & Adjunct Assistant Professor of Computer

Science; and Ms. Jennifer Smith, Coordinator of Communications, Outreach and

Programming at the Lauinger Library. Thanks to their interest, support and

guidance, phase one of the project, specifically the deployment of BOINC software to

all systems under the authority of Georgetown's University Information Services

department, has been completed as of November 19, 2014. With this milestone

accomplished, we’re now on track for a University wide deployment to occur

through a phased rollout in early 2015.


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Abstract

This project paper will demonstrate how any organization which utilizes

networked computer systems and mobile devices can, with minimal costs,

contribute their unused computing power to solve some of humanities greatest

challenges in healthcare and science. We will describe how advancements in

computer hardware and networking led to the development of an innovative open-‐

source software program known as the Berkley Open Infrastructure for Network

Computing (herein referred to as BOINC), which has since evolved to become the

platform of record for thousands of organizations around the world via the IBM-‐

sponsored World Community Grid (WCG). We will demonstrate how our progress

towards implementing BOINC / WCG at Georgetown University makes a compelling

business case for a new benefits corporation (b-‐corp) or a non-‐profit entity

specializing in the implementation of distributed computing initiatives for other

organizations.

Keywords: distributed computing, BOINC, World Community Grid


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Introduction

Of the many scientific and technological breakthroughs in the last 50 years,

the 1969 Apollo XI mission and the sequencing of the human genome are unique in

both their impact on society, as well as the degree to which technology innovation

made the projects possible. Despite possessing only 2 kilobytes of memory and just

1.024MHz or just .004077 GHz of processing power, the Apollo 11 computer helped

guide three astronauts safely to the moon (Robertson, 2009). More recently, rapid

advancements in the life sciences resulting from the mapping of the human genome

have created a wealth of complex data as to how the human body works. As Bazinet

notes, the analysis of this data has traditionally required very computationally

intensive methods such as stochastic simulation, machine learning approaches,

Bayesian analysis, and Markov-‐chain Monte Carlo sampling (Bazinet, 2009).

However, with recent advancements in grid computing techniques and the

proliferation of personal computers and smartphones, there has never been a better

opportunity to leverage the power of grid computing to solve some of humanities

greatest big data challenges in science and health care.

In the history of computers, the concept of grid, or distributed computing is a

relatively new innovation. For the purposes of this analysis, we’re adopting

Bazinet’s definition of grid or distributed computing as:

“A model of distributed computing that uses geographically and administratively disparate resources. In grid computing, individual users can access computers and data transparently, without having to consider location, operating system, account administration and other details. In grid computing, the details are abstracted, and the resources are virtualized” (Bazinet, 2009).


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Of the several approaches to grid computing, the most widely known effort is

the Berkley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing, or “BOINC” project, which

is an open-‐source “middleware” software platform that can be utilized to analyze

sets of data that are too large and complex for any single computer system to

process. Given that Georgetown University (GU) already possesses all of the

necessary technical and staffing resources that would be necessary to implement a

BOINC on thousands of systems; we have utilized this project to develop a

framework for implementing a multi-‐phased grid computing initiative that could be

adapted to work for other civic-‐minded organizations, large and small.

Company Overview

We are proud to present this business model for Supercomputing Delivered as

a viable concept that will provide computing resources to an underserved market of

researchers across the world. This plan is brought to you by the ‘Supercomputing

Delivered’ conceptual creators: Tyler Gray (CEO), Kyle Facada (CTO), and Annabel

Berman (CMO). This plan includes a strategy, business and financial model, and key

management and operation considerations, which have been carefully developed as

a framework to make the BOINC computing concept a viable business venture. An

implementation approach is also provided, to guide our new venture as we take the

necessary steps to enter the market, as well as a cost analysis outlining our

projections for the financial resources required to implement BOINC at varying

levels of complexity.


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This business plan is a product of a lengthy and detailed analysis of the

current landscape in this small but growing industry and the BOINC technology

itself. In addition to the business model, we have also provided a proposed

organization structure and market overview, competitive analysis, and other

relevant considerations for the venture.

Proposed Solution

The Berkley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing or “BOINC” is open-‐

source software for volunteer grid computing; the largest platform currently being

utilized is an initiative spearheaded by the IBM Corporation known as the World

Community Grid (or WCG). At a basic level, BOINC, via IBM’s WCG configuration

pools individual computing resources together, allowing them to process large

amounts of data in parallel to effectively create the equivalent of a multi-‐million

dollar supercomputer. The BOINC software does so by leveraging the idle time and

computing capacity on any desktop computer, laptop computer, tablet, or even

mobile device. This software has the power to offer organizations (particularly

those with limited resources) supercomputing capability at a fraction of the typical

cost.

Supercomputing Delivered is proposing to drive the adoption of BOINC at

colleges and Universities who are either not participating at all, or not fully

participating by means of the popular WCG configuration. Supercomputing

Delivered has an initial 12-‐month plan to use our unique knowledge, expertise, and

insights to assist other Universities implement a BOINC program whereby the users


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on their networks will participate in the WCG. Our longer term, three-‐year goal is to

explore the concept of re-‐selling University computing resources to customers

outside of the higher education community, specifically nonprofits and other

underserved computing markets.

Proposed Technological Solution

In their 2002 work “SETI@home: An Experiment in Public-‐Resource

Computing,” Dr. Anderson and his colleagues from Berkley chronicle the series of

developments that make BOINC possible. Thanks to Moore’s Law, a theory that

states that the computational speed of systems will, on average double every 18

months, today’s high end consumer personal computers (PC) are comparable to

multi-‐million dollar supercomputers that only governments and large corporations

could afford just a few years prior. As consumers began connecting to the Internet,

the idea for using Internet connected computers in unison lead to the launch of two

projects from which SETI@home would draw inspiration (Andersen, et al., 2002).

BOINC was not the first project to apply the concept of distributed computing to

solve scientific problems, unlike the earlier efforts such as GIMP and

Distributed.Net, which had previously applied distributed computing power to

solving mathematical equations. SETI@Home, however, launched with a much

more compelling hook, namely the search for search for extraterrestrial intelligence

(Andersen, et al., 2002). In the early 2000s, as computing power reached new

heights and data storage costs plummeted, SETI@home was processing information

at 60 TeraFLOPS, (trillion floating-‐point operations per second) while the world’s


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most powerful supercomputer at the time “only” clocked in at twelve TeraFLOPS

(Anderson, 2003).

Since its release in 1999, SETI@home has been used by over six million

volunteers to analyze 160 terabytes (TB) of data that has been collected by radio

telescopes all over the world. The most notable is the Arecibo Observatory in

Puerto Rico that was made famous in the 1996 James Bond film Goldeneye (Korpela,

2011). After first collecting all the radio data in a centralized database, the BOINC

software then breaks the data down into smaller, more manageable parts to be

distributed and processed by individual users for patterns that could potentially

indicate activities of intelligent life. The 1997 Jodi Foster-‐directed film Contact

captured this central concept, as it portrayed the analysis of data from radio

telescopes to discern and unlock potential patterns. However, unlike in the film

where scientists at SETI made the discovery, the SETI@home project distributes the

work of signal analysis across hundreds of thousands of Internet-‐connected

computer systems. Another key difference from the film Contact is that while

SETI@home has yet to conclusively identify signs of intelligent life coming from

other planets, according to the SETI@Home team, there have been enough

promising leads that overall enthusiasm for the project has not decreased

(Anderson, 2003).

To further uncover the participant mix in the SETI@Home project, Dr. David

Anderson conducted a survey in which 130,000 users responded. Dr. Anderson

discovered that the primary reason why most people were motivated to participate

in the project was, surprisingly, for public recognition that came from the


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SETI@Home leaderboard, and scoreboard of sorts that measured users’ system data

processing speeds. In fact, some users would go so far as to try and manipulate the

system in order to receive credit for completing more work than they really had! In

other words, in the search to discover extra-‐terrestrial life by analyzing radio

signals, people were, in essence, cheating. Thankfully, by unocering irregular usage

patterns and too-‐good-‐to-‐be-‐true results, Dr. Anderson and his team added new

features to their software to both mitigate cheating and enhance the accuracy of

future results by performing redundant computations and cross checking completed

data sets (Anderson, 2003).

World Community Grid

Since the BOINC software can utilize the power of distrusted computing for

virtually any type of big data project, BOINC has drawn the attention of academia,

business, information technology and the pharmaceutical industry as a means to

advance scientific research across a variety of disciplines. In 2003, the IBM

Corporation led a consortium of organizations in developing a unified public

computing grid to utilize the power of grid computing for scientific projects that

benefit humanity called the “World Community Grid” (WCG). Similar to the

development of SETI@Home, the WCG launched with a singular aim-‐ to accelerate

the discovery of a cure for smallpox. With strong public interest, the project

resulted in the identification of 44 new potential treatments for smallpox. Based on

the success of this initial effort, IBM elected to enhance their WCG program by

expanding access for users running operating systems other than Microsoft


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Windows (Linux / OSX) and away favor the proprietary backend software running

WCG to the open source BOINC (Cleary, 2008).

Alternative Models of Grid Computing and Middleware Systems: The Lattice

Project

Although we have been focused on desktop-‐based grid computing systems

utilizing variations of a specific software program, BOINC / WCG are not the only

approaches to employing IT resources at scale. In fact, many large academic

institutions and corporations utilize their own IT resources to perform analysis and

conduct research for internal stakeholders. What sets BOINC / WCG apart in the

realm of grid computing and competing “middleware” software platforms is the

open-‐source nature of the hardware and the fact that end users are donating their

resources for complete strangers to conduct scientific research. Using these two

concepts as a framework, researchers Michael Cummings and Adam Bazinet from

the University of Maryland developed their own novel combination of their

architectures in order to:

“Unite heterogeneous computing resources into a computational Grid system, so that resources are uniformly usable and addressable. Our Grid is composed of institutional resources, such as clusters and workstations, and resources that are volunteered by users running BOINC software… We have made a special effort to unite traditional Grid computing with what is known as desktop or volunteer computing, and our work has benefited greatly as a result” (Bazinet, 2009).

In Bazinet’s description, what makes the Lattice Project especially unique is that


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while most BOINC projects are focused on one particular problem, they have created

“a generalized Grid system using Globus, BOINC, and Condor” that is capable of

running several applications at once. Applications that were not originally designed

to work on grid computing systems are now able to, thereby greatly enhancing the

capabilities of the system to tackle even more diverse big data problems (Bazinet,

2009).

In terms of how The Lattice Project fits into our plans for Supercomputing

Delivered at Georgetown University and beyond, we envision an implementation of

the Lattice Project’s architecture as the long term end goal following initial

deployment of a BOINC / WCG solution. As our experience in implementing BOINC /

WCG at Georgetown has shown us, for institutions that may lack strong computer

science or systems engineering programs or are simply in overall size compared to a

major state funded public institution (like the University of Maryland, for example),

the actions involved in setting up BOINC / WCG can help pave the way for more

robust grid computing initiatives in the future. In the course of researching and

begging to implement BOINC / WCG at GU, we have identified the key stakeholders

who would be responsible for complex integrations that would take place in the

future. By involving these individuals and departments early on, we’re building a

coalition towards creating an even more robust program for the benefit of future

students and faculty.

Grid Computing Benefits the Life Sciences

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), malaria is both a

preventable and treatable mosquito-‐borne disease whose primary victims are


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children in Africa under five years old. In the latest estimates from 2012, the WHO

reports that there were 627,000 deaths from malaria, “with an uncertainty range of

473,000 to 789,000, mostly among African children,” out of a total of 207 million

cases of malaria in 2012 (World Health Organization, 2013). Strongly linked to

poverty, despite recent increases in funding for malaria control in the last eight

years, the WHO’s analysis indicates an “estimated US $5.1 billion is needed every

year between 2011 and 2020 to achieve universal access to malaria interventions,”

however in 2011 “only US $2.3 billion was available, less than half of what is

needed” (World Health Organization, 2013).

Furthermore, as frightening as those numbers are, if current trends continue

and the virus becomes resistant to antimalarial drugs, the potential losses will be

catastrophic. While many nations and non-‐governmental organizations, such as the

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are attacking the Malaria problem from several

angles, the big data analysis projects “Fight Malaria @Home,” is hoping to utilize the

BOINC / WCG platform and the power of distributed computing in order to discover

new drugs to target these strains of malaria which are becoming resistant to current

drugs. In this sense, Fight Malaria @Home has made it possible for anyone with a

computer and Internet connection to contribute to the fight against malaria.

On a biological level, malaria is actually caused by the protozoan parasite

known as Plasmodium falciparum. As the sponsors of Fight Malaria @Home point

out, thanks to the human genome project, “the plasmodium falciparum genome has

been sequenced, the proteome has been mapped, and protein expression has been

confirmed” (O'Brien D. A.). In other words, the molecular structure of the protozoan


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parasite that causes Malaria has been translated into machine-‐readable format.

To understand how distributed computing can help to discover new drugs to

fight malaria, it is first important to establish some background as to how modern

medicine fights disease using computer aided drug discovery. As the National

Institute of Health explained in a 2008 press release announcing the creation of a

new web-‐based database on diseases;

“Most drugs work by latching onto proteins and altering a biological process. Researchers can use computational tools to study the structural and biophysical properties of a target protein and, from among tens of thousands of possible ligands, predict the relatively few that bind to the protein in a potentially useful way. These ligands may warrant further study as so-‐called lead compounds for drug discovery. Computational tools can also indicate which compounds may interact with other proteins and cause unwanted side effects that could limit therapeutic use” (2008).

Just as in conventional warfare, understanding the composition of enemy

forces as well as their tactics and methods of operation is necessary to win in battle,

so to must scientists study plasmodium falciparum in order to discover its weak

points. To accomplish this, Fight Malaria @Home is currently analyzing over 19,000

different compounds that have been found to be successful in fighting plasmodium

falciparum. In their informational video explaining the project, team leaders Dr.

Anthony Chub and Kevin O’Brien explain that while any one of these 19,000

compounds can kill the parasite;

“We don’t know how it works, we don’t know which protein it binds to, we don’t know which pathway it is involved in, and we don’t know if some of them might work in a similar way to existing drugs. So what we’re interested in doing is screening all 19,000 compounds and look for new targets that have never been hit inside the parasite before” (O'Brien D. A., 2012).


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It is in analyzing these 19,000 compounds in which Fight Malaria @Home is

utilizing the power of BOINC to crunch numbers in support of an alternative

approach to finding new cures that would have otherwise not been possible due to

funding constraints and competition from other researchers. As opposed to the

other projects seeking to find a cure to malaria, as Dr. Chub and O’Brien go onto

explain; “while Alex (leader of competing efforts) is docking millions of compounds

against a small number of target proteins, we are asking if we can find the target

protein that is inhibited by a specific compound. In essence it's the same question -‐

backwards” (O'Brien D. A.). In terms of their progress towards this goal, in May

2013 the project had its first major success:

“After analyzing the data generated in the first phase (docking all the 400 MalariaBox compounds against all models), we have ranked lists of potential inhibitors for each receptor. We tested the top 20 hits using a model of the Plasmodial form of HDAC (histone deacetylase) in a laboratory (Dr. Marian Brennan, RCSI, Dublin), and found THREE new inhibitors! So that's just one of the 1,500 receptors that we're docking, using only the best docking results, i.e., only the 20 best ligands” (O'Brien D. A.).

BOINC Software: Desktop and Mobile User Experience

Review

As part of our analysis, our project team

participated, and recruited others to participate, in BOINC

/ WCG. Although most organizations tend to be relatively

uniform in terms of the hardware and software

configurations, this project aims to involve organization


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as well as the private resources of individuals in combined projects. Therefore, it is

important to understand first-‐hand how BOINC / WCG software affects individual

user experience.

Desktop Software: Windows + OSX

As noted by Arnie Miles, since the BOINC software was originally developed

for Windows, BOINC performs best from both a user and administrative perspective

on Windows based PCs. In Mr. Miles as well as our own experience, BOINC did not

significantly downgrade user experience when setup to run only during the system’s

idle time. In terms of desktop and laptop performance, because BOINC is a resource

intensive application, laptop systems without proper ventilation will generate a

significant amount of heat. In this respect, for laptop systems a unique installation

profile should be created to utilize fewer system resources than comparable

desktop systems.

Mobile Device Support

At present, thanks to the support of IBM and HTC Corporation, there is a free

Android application available for download that allows anyone to run BOINC from

their smartphone. With a sample size of 10 participants using devices from a

variety of manufactures on both handheld and tablet computers, we asked

volunteers to install and try the software for one weekend and to report on results.

In terms of how the program affects overall device performance, because the default

settings for BOINC are to run the program only when a device is connected to A/C


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power source and Wi-‐Fi, we did not receive any complaints of reduced performance

on the devices. However, the default settings for the application in regards to the

amount of data storage could be a problem for some users, as the default settings

regarding the maximum storage space the app can use is abnormally high(up to

90% of available capacity). Aside from some improvements to setting up the app,

such as implementing a single-‐sign-‐on for users, overall feedback was positive.

Worldwide, the user feedback on the application from the Google Play store is

positive, with 3,009 total reviews and a rating of 4.4 / 5.0 (BOINC Reviews).

Current State of BOINC at Georgetown University

Of the wealth of statistical information available on all BOINC teams, on the

leaderboard teams are ranked according to their: Current Credits, BOINC World

Position, Position in Country, Number of Members and Number of Active Members.

Prior to undertaking this initiative, the current state of BOINC deployment at

Georgetown University in late 2013 was as follows:

Largest & Most Productive Georgetown Group:

“Georgetown University Faculty Staff and Students.”

● BOINC Rank: 407 out of 101,525 ● Current Credits: 36,774,236.59 ● Position in Country: 368 out of 101,525 ● Number of Members: 347 ● Active Members: 21 ● Top Projects: BOINC Combined, World Community Grid ● Group Homepage: http://boincstats.com/en/stats/-‐

1/team/detail/60725

(BOINCstats/BAM! | BOINC combined -‐ team stats -‐ Georgetown University Faculty Staff and Students).


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Second Largest & Most Productive Georgetown Group:

“Georgetown University”

● BOINC Rank: 3,147 out of 101,525 ● Current Credits: 12,027,196.93 ● Position in Country: 1,794 out of 101,525 ● Number of Members: 37 ● Active Members: 3 ● Top Projects: Climate Prediction, Einstein@Home, Malaria Control

SETI@Home ● Group Homepage: http://boincstats.com/en/stats/-‐

1/team/detail/2165/overview (BOINCstats/BAM! | BOINC combined -‐ team stats -‐ Georgetown University).

Deploying BOINC at Georgetown University

While there is much to be gained by fully embracing BOINC on campus, there

are a number of issues that are currently being addressed in order to deploy BOINC

/ WCG University wide. The deployment of BOINC at GU will succeed by overcoming

potential roadblocks and building consensus, a staggered deployment path, and a

diffusion of responsibility across multiple GU departments. As a first step, the

Supercomputing Delivered Team worked with the Georgetown University

Information Systems (UIS) team to encourage condensing the multiple Georgetown

BOINC project teams that are currently in existence at the University. There are

currently three teams with active members (in order of most prevalent: Georgetown

University Faculty Staff and Students, Georgetown University, and Georgetown

Hoyas) (BOINCstats/BAM! | Search).

Potential Security Concerns

As the creators of BOINC acknowledge, there are legitimate concerns about


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the security, network, and performance implications of introducing a new system

into any environment. However, as we have demonstrated at Georgetown

University, this can be mitigated by actively seeking out stakeholders and

requesting a formal review of BOINC’s security wiki early on. As described in the

BOINC security wiki, a multilayered system of protections have been built into the

system to protect the integrity of systems:

“Malicious executable distribution

BOINC uses code signing to prevent this. Even if attackers break into a project's BOINC server, they will not be able to cause clients to accept a false code file.

Intentional abuse of participant hosts by projects BOINC uses account-‐based sandboxing: applications run under a specially-‐created account (Mac/Linux? version 5.4+, Windows version 6+). If file and directory permissions are set appropriately, applications will have no access to files outside of the BOINC directory.

Accidental abuse of participant hosts by projects BOINC prevents some problems: for example, it detects when applications use too much disk space, memory, or CPU time, and aborts them. Projects can minimize the likelihood of causing problems by pre-‐released application testing. Projects should test their applications thoroughly on all platforms and with all input data scenarios before promoting them to production status” (Berkley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing, 2009).

Since implementation of BOINC at Georgetown, the University has not

experienced any security issues with the BOINC software, proving the initial

minimal security threats worthwhile. According to Jennifer Smith, the Georgetown

University Library Communication Coordinator:

“We have not had any performance or security concerns with the program.

BOINC (only) uses approximately 200MB of memory at (when) the computer


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is running. Since the vast majority of our computers have 4GiB or more

memory, this hasn't made any noticeable impact on performance. We've also

configured BOINC is so that it only runs computations (which can slow down

the computer significantly) when the computer is not in use by a user”

(BOINC at Georgetown: Library Coordinator of Communications [Interview]).

Supercomputing Delivered met with Arnie Miles several times throughout

the recent months. Arnie is an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at GU who

plays an important role within UIS. Arnie is spearheading the full deployment of

BOINC across the entire University (see Implementation Path, Stage 1 for more

details). According to Miles, “Since BOINC is run by IBM, there is very low security

impact (according to the Security Office)” (BOINC at Georgetown: UIS [Personal

interview]). As multiple University staff have advocated for BOINC and ensured our

team that security is not a concern, our team felt comfortable moving forward with

the project.

Financial Concerns

Implementing BOINC will require resources in the form of staff time, and

potentially increased utility costs due to the higher CPU utilization of machines

running BOINC. In terms of concerns regarding additional overtime costs for staff,

given that BOINC is already in use on GU systems, it stands to reason that additional

GU staff would be willing to volunteer their time out of an interest in the end

product. Initial outreach to GU IT Admin staff on this front has been encouraging.

Financially, BOINC projects could benefit Georgetown researchers in a way far


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exceeding the minimal costs the small energy and staff costs could incur. Through

IBM and Government agencies, such as the National Science Foundation,

Georgetown researchers could apply for grants to fund BOINC projects. The NSF

awarded a $998,862 grant for the Einsten@Home Project, sponsored by the

University of Wisconsin-‐ Milwaukee (Research Areas).

The only costs Georgetown has incurred thus far were for staff time to install

the BOINC software, and setting up the programs when BOINC was installed in May

of 2013, according to Smith; “There is a slight increase in our electricity usage, but

we have not been able to ascertain the amount.” As for increased power

consumption, this could be mitigated by efficiency savings elsewhere or fundraising

drives to install clean energy solutions. Since the power consumption that BOINC

utilizes is so minimal, this is a very minor concern (BOINC at Georgetown: Library

Coordinator of Communications [Interview]).

Stakeholders

Given the wide variety of worthwhile projects to choose from, it is likely that

a strong coalition of students, professors and university officials would support

BOINC. Furthermore, given that BOINC is supported by a grant from the National

Science Foundation, there is a reasonable chance that Georgetown could obtain a

grant to implement and improve on BOINC on its computer systems, thereby

mitigating some of the opposition to the idea.

Implementation Path: Georgetown Deployment of BOINC

Stage 1-‐ Data Collection-‐ Investigation of Current BOINC Environment


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and Discussion for Georgetown Campus Distribution

In May of 2013, Library Systems Administrator, Aaron Williams handled

most of the implementation of BOINC for the Georgetown Library computer

systems. To date, this is the only location on Georgetown’s campus that has a formal

installation of BOINC/ WCG software (BOINC at Georgetown: Library Coordinator of

Communications [Interview]). Beginning in November of 2013, Georgetown has

seen active participation in their BOINC projects; there has been a particular surge

in credits within the last six months. From November 2013 to November 2014, the

Georgetown University Faculty Staff and Students Group has increased its total

credit output by 598 percent. Moreover, since our initial efforts to enact BOINC /

WCG at Georgetown University, as of December 1 the addition of several hundred

new systems has generated 6,333,187 points or

0.45 TeraFLOPs in additional processing power in less than two weeks-‐time.

(BOINCstats/BAM! | BOINC combined -‐ team stats -‐ Georgetown University Faculty

Staff and Students).

Given this surge in the interest and use of BOINC amongst the Georgetown

community, Supercomputing Delivered is continuing to explore opportunities

expanding the deployment of BOINC/WCG beyond shared computing systems and

those under the direct control of Georgetown University Information services.

During our initial interview with Mr. Miles, he mentioned an upcoming conversation

he would be having with Deputy CIO, Judd Nicholson, in which he would be

requesting Nicholson’s approval to have a campus wide deployment of BOINC on

any machine under UIS control (computer, server, lab, etc) (BOINC at Georgetown:


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UIS [Personal interview]). On October 23, 2014, Miles sent an email to

Supercomputing Delivered, announcing that Nicholson was tentatively on-‐board

with rolling out BOINC/ WCG all systems under the direct control of Georgetown’s

UIS department. Miles then invited our team to be a part of the kickoff meeting, in

which we would be project leads under Nicholson’s supervision (Revisiting

Expanding BOINC at GU [Interview]). This exciting news further demonstrates the

enthusiasm for WCG among GU faculty and belief that undertaking this initiative will

lead to outsized results for both the early backers and the university at large.

During the kickoff meeting held on October 31, 2014, Miles tasked

Supercomputing Delivered with drafting a letter to Tony Cipriano, who is

responsible for imaging the classroom lab stations (BOINC Georgetown Campus

Deployment: Kickoff Meeting [Interview]). Having completed this task, the letter

was subsequently sent on behalf of CTO Miles which prompted Mr. Cipriano to

initiate the software deployment process by which over 100 new systems have

come online to start processing data for the Georgetown University WCG group in

only two weeks. This initiative is taking off across Georgetown; the current BOINC

environment is blossoming and our team is on the forefront of this effort.

Stage 2: Secure Endorsement from Key Students and Faculty Members

In September 2012, Georgetown’s Chief Operating Officer deployed the

IdeaScale platform to serve as a permanent forum to solicit feedback and encourage

discussion between students, faculty and staff (Crouch, 2012). Although the

IdeaScale platform, (known as Georgetown Idea Roundtable, or “h.Roundtables,”) is


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not prominently featured on the GU website, since its launch h.Roundtables has still

managed to attract 3,323 users to generate more than 300 ideas, over 700

comments and 30,000+ votes (Georgetown University, 2014). A member of

Supercomputing Delivered submitted the idea to deploy BOINC throughout

Georgetown owned PCs in November of 2013 to IdeaScale, which just so happened

to coincide with another independent effort to implement BOINC at Georgetown’s

Laungier Library (Georgetown Ideas). This early interaction was a major factor in

facilitating our early success with implementing BOINC / WCG on a larger scale at

Georgetown University.

Stage 3: Official Briefings and Discussions with Key GU Administrators

& Students

As part of the project leads to Miles and Nicholson’s to initiate the

deployment of BOINC / WCG across all UIS controlled systems throughout

Georgetown, we are in a good position to speak with other GU Administrators about

expanding the adoption of BOINC to enable Georgetown to claim a top ten position

in the worldwide WCG rankings (BOINC at Georgetown: UIS [Personal interview]).

Now that GU will be deploying BOINC on all UIS controlled systems, it is important

that we maintain contacts with Administration, as well as initiating communications

with active student users and fostering new relationships to encourage more

growth amongst the student body as well as faculty. It is our hope that all PCs, not

just those operated by UIS, will install BOINC to become a part of this effort.


25

Stage 4: Formal Adoption of BOINC by GU

The formal adoption process has already begun and will continue in the

coming months, with the widespread roll out of BOINC on all UIS managed systems.

With continued support from GU IT staff, current GU students, and alumni, our team

believes BOINC can be installed and ran on every system at Georgetown. Outreach

to current students to assist with the implementation will be incorporated into the

next stage of outreach efforts, while outreach to alumni will be conducted via social

media networks such as LinkedIn and by requesting language in official university

communications to students and alumni.

Stage 5: Lessons Learned / Media Outreach

Regular outreach to local and national technology reports will be on-‐going

throughout the process as to the progress, challenges and results of implementing

BOINC at Georgetown University. Continued meetings with Miles, Nicholson, and

the UIS deployment team while we begin to implement BOINC across Georgetown

will be an imperative step in ensuring progress is made. Our team is fully

committed to the effort at Georgetown, as well as beyond.

Post-‐Georgetown Business Plan

BOINC has taken off successfully at Georgetown, and is on its way to being

largely adopted throughout the entire campus. As Supercomputing Delivered, our

primary business goal is to now bring our knowledge and consulting services to

Universities and non-‐profit organizations who are looking at maintaining their


26

BOINC accounts, setting up new projects, or assisting in whatever their BOINC needs

may be, to ensure this platform continues to be widely used. We have conducted

extensive research regarding this business model, and have identified the below

building blocks, which we believe make our business a viable, strong structure.

Market Demand & Value Propositions

BOINC is a reliable, secure product with a demonstrated value and enormous

potential. Our company brings the unique knowledge, expertise, and capability that

higher education institutions need to fully implement and benefit from a BOINC

solution on their campus. Colleges and Universities, as institutions of higher

education and learning, are by nature motivated to invest in tools and technology

that broaden their research capability, making them inclined to utilize our

consulting services.

While there is not a current market for our services, we believe we can create

a market by offering a unique value proposition to our potential institution

customers. BOINC has the potential to unlock vast computing power and problem

solving/research capability for numerous institutions; however, these institutions

lack the knowledge, skill sets, resources, and organizational commitments to

implement a BOINC and use it to generate value and innovate (which is where

Supercomputing Delivered provides an invaluable asset). Key to our success is

twofold; we must demonstrate the value of BOINC to the customer, and then also

demonstrate that we can provide them. Having successfully assisted Georgetown

University in deploying a BOINC system and assisting them develop ways to


27

leverage the capability, we are uniquely suited to advise other institutions as they

seek to replicate the success we have had at Georgetown. The lessons learned and

critical insights we gather at Georgetown will enable us to anticipate and address

the challenges that other organizations will likely encounter as they deploy BOINC,

helping them do so more efficiently and with reduced risk.

Competitive Analysis

At the present time, we see no companies currently in this specific market

that would directly compete with our service offering. While there are some

companies offering similar computing resources for sale, these are predominately

done in a self-‐service model, rather than a managed implementation of open-‐source

software. The chart below identifies and provides an overview of the three

organizations that present potential competitive threats to our business venture,

and our response plan to those risks.

Overview: Amazon High Performance Computing (HPC) allows scientists or researchers to increase the speed of research by running high performance computing in the cloud Reduces costs by providing Cluster Compute or Cluster GPU servers on-‐demand without large capital investments

Overview: Slicify is a marketplace to connect users with extra computing resources to organizations seeking to rent those resources from all over the world. Reduces costs by providing simple hourly rate from a pool of providers. Slicify is a Chinese company

Overview: IBM is one of the largest providers of IT consulting and professional services in the world. As the host organization for the World Community Grid (WCG), IBM would be able to offer a similar capability Presently, the World Community Grid is a


28

Response Plan: Partner with organization and establish business relationship. Ultimately seek hardware referral fees.

based in Hong Kong, which may be of concern to security minded users. Response Plan: Monitor organization size, service offerings, market penetration, and position in market. Track pricing.

philanthropic initiative of IBM Corporate Citizenship Response Plan: Partner with organization to obtain technical knowledge. Ensure goals/objectives remain aligned to those of WCG program. Monitor IBM service offerings.

Customer Segments

Critical to the success of our venture is identifying who we will provide our

services to, and then finding ways to logically coordinate and tailor our services to

provide the highest level of value to the customer. Supercomputing Delivered has

an initial plan of targeting accredited Colleges and Universities, segmented by region

and then by size (based on 2013 total enrollment). Small Universities are those with

less than 10,000 students, medium Universities are those with between 10,000 and

20,000, and large Universities are defined as those with greater than 20,000

students. Our future customer base will include nonprofit organizations in the

Washington, D.C. area with big data analytics needs that are: certified 501(c)3’s or

small business organizations (SBO’s) (those that have revenue of less than $5

million per year).

Key Partnerships

Several key partnerships will be established for this business venture. A

relationship management system will be utilized to ensure these partnerships are

well maintained and that regular communication is established with the partner.


29

The partnerships include: Georgetown University (specifically UIS and the Library),

IBM’s WCG, and Amazon Cloud Services. Georgetown University, where we will

pilot our BOINC deployment framework, will be a critical relationship and as we

continue to monitor the success of the program following its implementation. The

World Community Grid and IBM, as the host organizations for network, will be key

sources of information, particularly from a technical perspective. Finally, as

indicated in our business plan, hardware referrals as part of a BOINC deployment

offer opportunities for incremental revenue. Thus, maintaining a relationship with

Amazon Cloud Services, a major provider of hardware, is essential. Supercomputing

Delivered hopes to establish future partnerships with other hardware/service

providers and other Universities and nonprofits as we grow our business.

Channels/Marketing

Established channels will be used to deliver services to University customers

and to drive awareness of our services both at the customer (University) level, and

within communities. We will promote awareness via marketing campaigns on

Georgetown and other University intranet sites. We will immediately establish a

website and social media presence to ensure prospective customers have access to

all available information. Our team will utilize client engagement frameworks,

knowledge repositories, and other leading class tools that help us deliver advisory

services to our clients.

Revenue Streams


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Revenue Streams refer to the ways in which we will acquire capital and

monetary assets. The three identified revenue streams in our initial business plan

are aligned with, but not directly correlated to, our key activities. These revenue

streams include our professional advisory services, in which we market and manage

the implementation of BOINC at a college or University, assess the current BOINC

landscape, and help institutions maximize the value that they obtain from their

participation in the WCG. These fee-‐based services will either be billed to customers

on a time + cost basis or for a fixed price. The second source of revenue from the

business venture is government and foundation grants. As a non-‐profit primarily

marketing services to institutions of higher education, or organization will be

eligible for funding sources obtained through federal, state, and local grant

programs or corporate philanthropic initiatives. Finally, our third source of revenue

will be from sales of “Lattice” project level dedicated implementations.

Key Resources

A variety of resources will need to be leveraged as we seek to implement our

business plan that we have divided into three major groupings: physical, capital, and

intellectual. Each of these types of resources are critical enablers that we will use to

market or deliver services to our potential clients and is an essential component of

the business plan. Physical resources refer to tangible things that we’ll need, such as

computers, business supplies, software, and even facility costs. These are things

that absolutely must be present in order for our business plan to succeed. Capital

resources refer to monetary assets obtained from our revenue sources. These are


31

used to maintain the business, acquire physical assets, pay salaries, and invest in

new services to provide to clients. Finally and likely most importantly, are our

intellectual resources. These refer to our BOINC phased deployment methodology

outlined above, working knowledge, insights, experience, and the “know how”

required to deliver services across our three key activities, or service offerings. As

our value proposition relies on the knowledge gained from successful prior

deployments of BOINC, particularly the one at Georgetown, we will leverage a

robust knowledge management system. This includes internal knowledge tracking

principles, frameworks, and tools and technology that will allow us to easily access

the information we need as we provide services to customers.

Key Activities

The key activities we will undertake refer to the specific services that we

provide potential customers and are organized logically by the particular value that

we will provide the client in the service. First, and likely what will be our core

service offering is the establishment of a BOINC program at the institution. This is a

managed implementation of the software and structure needed to participate in the

WCG network, where we first determine if the organization has a BOINC program or

existing participants, and includes a cost analysis and governance framework for the

customer. The final outputs of the managed implementation are a formal adoption

plan and the deployment of the program.

Our second major activity or service is the evaluation of the current state of

existing BOINC programs. Our subject matter knowledge and key partnerships will


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enable us to assess the customer’s current program, evaluate the potential capacity,

and also develop a business case for deployment at organizations with cost

restrictions or potential program resistance. The outputs include a formalized

current state analysis report that provides a comprehensive overview of the

institution’s program, and a specific performance improvement plan that identifies

proven ways that organizations can drive participation in the program, and engage

and develop leadership buy-‐in.

Finally, the last major activity in our service portfolio involves assisting

institutions with existing programs maximize the value of their program. This

involves analyzing the current research needs for large scale analytic capabilities

and assisting researchers at that institution access the WCG. The output of this

major activity is a Value Extraction Toolkit that highlights specific actions the

institution can take to further benefit from its program.

Cost Structure/Financials

The cost structure below demonstrates the main costs associated with

running BOINC. There are three types of BOINC projects a client may decide to run.

The first type is the most common, which is running BOINC software for a pre-‐

existing project. The two other types of projects are not as common and our team

anticipates that clients will rarely request our services in setting up their own large

BOINC project (a project with over 5,000 hosts).


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Cost Component Services for Running Current BOINC Project

Smaller BOINC Project for Implementation (< 5,000 hosts)

Bigger BOINC Project for Implementation (5,000 + hosts)

Salaries $1,000 $5,000 $10,000

Network Covered through University

Covered through University

$2,000 for 100 Mbit

Hardware $0-‐$10,000 $4,000 $18,000 for Server; $25,000 for AC

Total (Startup) $0-‐ $10,000 $4,000 $43,000

Total (Monthly) $1,000 $5,000 $12,000

(Kondo, D).

The revenue Supercomputing Delivered anticipates will come from four

different sources. Since this is a new venture, with no means to compare, we had to

work on many assumptions and estimates. As we prosper and grow, our financials

will continue to change. We estimated 60% of our revenues coming from our

consulting services, 30% from initial seed money and grants. As stated previously,

Government entities such as NSF have given BOINC projects grants; specifically, NSF

gave a $998,862 grant for the Einstein@Home Project, sponsored by the University

of Wisconsin-‐ Milwaukee (Research Areas). Additionally, NASA provided funding

for the Orbit@Home project (Graham, Richard M). Companies also provide

researchers and students grants for conducting computing projects. On September

17, 2012, Nvidia announced they were selecting ten PhD students globally to receive

$25,000 grants each, who were participating in GPU-‐ based research (inclusive of


34

BOINC) (Attention Geniuses).

We believe, as a 501(c)3 organization, we could qualify for grants as a means

to capital. By referring Amazon Cloud Services as a hardware provider for BOINC to

our clients, we are hoping to generate referral fees from Amazon as we grow as a

business (this is an estimated 10% of our revenue stream). A major component of

our services to our client is the ability to optimize their BOINC project results, and

display the data in meaningful ways. This monthly optimization of data results

accounts for the remaining 10% of our revenue stream.

The estimated payback period (given our assumed data) is 1, and our Return

on Investment (ROI) is 29%. Based on this data and our assumptions, our venture is

very sound financially. Although the profits we are seeing in the first three years are


35

minimal, they are stable. As a social good, 501(c)3 service-‐provider, we are not

seeking extravagant profits, especially not upfront. We came to these numbers by

assuming that in year 1, we assist a University in maintaining a BOINC project, and

also assist a University in setting up a small BOINC project. In year 2, we are

working on two BOINC sustainment projects and one BOINC implementation

project. In year 3, we assumed we would be working on three sustainment projects

and one small implementation projects. We used low estimates to the amount of

work we believe we could generate, so that our cash flow analysis would not be

overestimated. As providing staff and consulting services, our cash outflow is the

cost of labor required for each type of project. For implementation projects, labor is

more expensive, due to the need of hired programmers, not just our executive

consulting team (Supercomputing Delivered).

The chart below demonstrates the payback period analysis.

Year 0 1 2 3

Cash Inflows Seed Funding/Grant/ Revenue:

$100,000

$125,000

$200,000

Cash Outflows $72,000 $84,000 $144,000

$28,000 $41,000 $56,000

46.43% 36.59%


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Management and Key Operations

The management of the business venture refers to the methods and

organizational structure that we will employee as we initiate business operations

and execute our strategy. We will initially charter our enterprise as a non-‐profit

organization and a 501(c)(3). Our Board of Directors will initially be comprised of

the three-‐team members, each with a unique role in running or developing an

aspect of the business. Tyler Gray, as the CEO, will have ultimate authority of the

venture and is the face of the company. He will serve as the project manager of each

deployment. Kyle Facada, as the Chief Technology Officer, will own service delivery,

developing the catalogue of service offerings, and serve as the lead technology

advisor. Annabel Berman, as the Chief Marketing Officer, will focus on building our

customer base, managing key relationships, identifying new opportunities, and

marketing our services via our various channels. She will also own all

administrative and business functions for the firm.

Operationally, we plan to initially deploy our business plan with no salaried

staff as we build our customer base and work to validate our model within the first

year of operations. Following our first year, we will develop and manage to a staff

acquisition plan. This plan ultimately calls for a dedicated team of deployment

consultants, each one identifying with a particular customer segment and providing

customized, personalized service to each of our clients. Lastly, our IT Support

offering will leverage the BOINC Leaderboard initially, until we are able to provide

this service in-‐house.


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Further Considerations

Supercomputing Delivered researched an array of databases to identify any

potential legal or policy issues that could affect the implementation of BOINC. Based

on our research, there have not been any legal implications resulting from BOINC or

WCG; likewise, there have been no legal implications resulting from BOINC projects.

The databases utilized for research include: Westlaw Business, ESBSCOhost eBook

Collection, and the Georgetown Law State Secret Archives (Business Law Research,

EBSCOHOST, Georgetown Law State Secrets Archive). The WCG does not have any

policies in place that would restrict our consulting services, or use of their software

in our business pursuit.

Conclusions and Further Study

In reviewing both the history and potential of distributed computing with

BOINC, it is important to remember that we are still in relatively new and uncharted

territory. However, one aspect of this project, which certainly isn’t new, is the

concept of utilizing existing tools in novel ways to accomplish a seemingly

impossible task. Since BOINC expanded from SETI@Home to include projects in

other disciplines, the sheer volume of projects and results that have been generated

are nothing short of astounding.

On November 3, 2014 Dr. David J. Foran published an update on the World

Community Grid website commemorating the 10-‐year anniversary of the WCG

project with a series of updates that put the power and importance of grid


38

computing with BOINC / WCG into perspective. Noting that in cases in which a

patient is diagnosed with cancer, their doctor’s analysis currently is the primary

method of determining how aggressively the patient is treated. However, new

precision medicine techniques such as “microarray analysis” is enabling doctors to

analyze large batches of tissues samples simultaneously, to better identify patterns

and unique cancer signatures. While microarray analysis shows great promise, if

pathologists were able to utilize digital pattern recognition algorithms, it would be

“possible for researchers to determine a patient's type and stage of cancer more

precisely, meaning they can prescribe therapies or combinations of treatments that

are most likely to be effective” (Foran, 2014).

To study this approach, Dr. Foran utilized the WCG in 2006 and since then:

“More than 200,000 World Community Grid volunteers from around the globe who donated over 2,900 years of their computing time, we were able to study over 100,000 patient tissue samples to search for cancer signatures. Access to this vast computing power enabled our team to rapidly conduct this research under a much wider range of environmental conditions and to perform specimen analysis at much greater degrees of sensitivity” (Foran, 2014).

Other BOINC projects such as MalariaControl.Net, Roseta@Home and dozens

more have made even more impressive contributions to their respective disciplines:

• FightAIDS@Home: On November 4 2014 FightAIDS@Home announced that they have validated the computational analysis done by FightAIDS@Home users, and that this analysis is “providing important confirmation of our methodology and the value of your computational results” that has increased their understanding of how to disrupt HIV (FightAIDS@Home Research Team).

• ClimatePrediction.Net project has led to the publication of 14 original pieces of research on topics relating to better weather prediction and the effects of greenhouse gasses.


39

• The Einstein@Home project has discovered over more than three-‐dozen new neutron stars (Allen).

• The GPUGrid project has been able to conduct research into cancer, HIV, neural disorders like schizophrenia and find answers to questions “within an atomic level of accuracy (that) requires performing molecular dynamics simulations at the limit of computational power. GPUGRID technology allows us to successfully tackle this problem” (GPUGRID, 2012).

Given the strong track record of BOINC / WCG and the fact that Georgetown

University’s mission is a call to service for all students, faculty and staff to work

together in solving the world’s most pressing problems, “including poverty, disease

and conflict,” we’re thrilled to be able to utilize this project contribute to

Georgetown as an institution and society at large.


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Appendix

I. Technical Architecture-‐ Advanced “LATTICE” Implementation (Bazinet).

II. Reward Badges Available for WCG Participation / Individual

Recognition


41


42

III. Georgetown University Faculty / Staff BOINC Group


43


44

IV. Interview: Jennifer Smith, Georgetown Library (LAU) Coordinator of Communications Date: October 21, 2014, 12:00 pm. Teleconference.

Jennifer Smith: Library Coordinator of Communications [email protected] Q1 Supercomputing Delivered: -‐ What prompted LAU Library to implement BOINC? A1 Jennifer:

- It was implemented 18 months ago, Aaron Williams handled most of implementation started before it came up on Ideas Scale.

- IdeaScale topic came up last November. - Not very knowledgeable of its current use, believe it has remained consistent

since its inception. Q2 Supercomputing Delivered:

- Have there been security or performance issues on Library systems? A2 Jennifer:

- We have not had any performance or security concerns with the program. BOINC uses approximately 200MiB of memory at all times that the computer is running. Since the vast majority of our computers have 4GiB or more memory, this hasn't made any noticeable impact on performance. We've also configured BOINC is so that it only runs computations (which can slow down the computer significantly) when the computer is not in use by a user.

Q3 Supercomputing Delivered:

- Does it surprise that more buildings / departments are not participating? A3 Jennifer:

- From staff perspective, not one of our core competencies, not enough time. - Fantastic IT dept in library, able to make happen, sure other depts would

love to if they had the resources. - Would have to be implemented by UIS, and there are competing priorities-‐

does not make money. - We (the library) were able to do it because we have our own IT department.


45

Q4 Supercomputing Delivered: - What have the costs been like to run BOINC for the library?

A4 Jennifer:

- The only costs the Library has incurred were staff time installing and setting up the program. Presumably there is a slight increase in our electricity usage, but we have not been able to ascertain the amount.

Q5 Supercomputing Delivered

- Has interest in BOINC expanded since initiation? A5 Jennifer:

- We have not actively been recruiting. - We ran a news story on the library website last Feb to raise awareness - I believe that if there was an effort by University administration, BOINC

would be more widely adopted.

V. Interview: Arnie Miles, Georgetown University Information Systems

(UIS) & Adjunct Assistant Professor of Computer Science Date: October 14, 2014, 1:00 pm. Teleconference.

Q1 Supercomputer Delivered:

- How did you first hear about / get involved with BOINC?

A1 Arnie:

- I Built HPC clusters for GU, at first HPC convention for IMB. I had been doing

the predecessor to WCG.

- I started assigning extra credit assignments for the students of my class to

become involved in WCG. Most of my students still have their accounts.

Everything from my group (Georgetown university faculty, staff and students

group) was left open for everyone to join, the library joined.


- Are you aware of any prior efforts to implement BOINC at GU?


46

A2 Arnie:

- I had tried to get condor project on campus-‐ in the lab or faculty machines.

However, I couldn’t get any traction. It would require a lot of busy work and

it is not likely to get kudos. There are not a lot of GU researchers; BOINC on

the other hand is internationally known project that has legs, our

participation may help researchers in general, and can point to project

Georgetown is helping with international impact.

- Took the idea to have BOINC rolled out throughout GU computers that are

controlled by UIS as a proposal to deputy CIO, Judd Nicholson. I am waiting

to get on his calendar to talk to him about the implementation approach.


- Have you had any security or performance concerns?

A3 Arnie:

- It is run by IBM, there is very little impact and low security impact (Security

office stated). There are not really any performance concerns; a couple

students complain that it slows machine down.. “only been two or three”

anecdotal campaigns (cannot prove it is linked to the software by any

means).


- If this was implemented, do you think it would help GU become better known

for technology?

A4 Arnie:

- WCG would serve as a reputation enhancement for the university, less so for

UIS except for body that did the work for the university-‐ less for for the CIS

department.

- If one of more researchers from medical school / (Georgetown 60th largest

provider) That prestige would buy grants-‐ then even more prestige would


47

come as a result.

- With popular projects, we could use project to increase advertising within

Georgetown community-‐ then people may propose new projects.

- Another level of success [future goal to set]-‐-‐ Self install of WCG on UIS

platform (so any faculty member or student could run on their own personal

machine).


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VI. Email/ Interview: Arnie Miles (UIS), Revisiting Expanding BOINC at GU Date: October 23, 2014, 11:10 am. Email.


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VII. Kick-‐Off Meeting/Interview: Arnie Miles (UIS), Judd Nicholson (Deputy CIO), BOINC Georgetown Campus Deployment Kick-‐Off Meeting Date: October 31, 2014, 2:00 pm. Teleconference.

Attendees: Arnie Miles (AM), Judd Nicholson (JN), Amy Bruno (AB), Annabel Berman, Tyler Gray, Kyle Facada (Students) Meeting Minutes: AM + JN: We’re on the same page RE implementation BOINC via WCG. Per JD, it is

“Easier to sell (a new project) based on the social good aspect vs. it’s technical

construction”

Prior Convo AM / JN: Moving forward multiple levels (UIS all machines labs/class) -‐

All under single username (similar to how Launger Library is a user in the

Georgetown University BOINC / WCG group).

Next Step: Deploy to UIS desktop PCs then setup portal whereas GU facility + staff

can be invited to download GU specific customization of BOINC / WCG via UIS

portal.

Formal Announcement-‐ JN to communicate with GU Communications Director

Laura (comms) to send out formal announcement via email and JN’s blog.

Progressing Forward (JN): “This is a great effort for GU to contribute to scientific

research as institution.” We will proceed with a phased rollout through UIS then

greater GU-‐

JN Question: Is there a way for feedback?

AM / TG: Yes, via the public WCG leaderboard, which tracks progress by team and

individual contributions.


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AM administers the current GU Faculty / Staff Group. He will report as to

individual and group results to differentiate and recognize contributions from

students, faculty, and GU departments.

JN: I believe that as people volunteer, others will also then see the value. We need

periodic milestones (such as the raw number / changes to the number of volunteers,

hours committed and work completed. Next we will brief GU Chief Information

Officer Lisa Davis.

AM + Students Action Items: Setup meeting with GU Director of Research

Technologies Steve Moore to find out if any GU students / faculty would be

interested in to run project (IBM) via Steve Moore-‐ find out who would be

interested at GU research community.

JN GOAL: Currently, GU is the 60th largest group-‐ Aim for top 10 by end of

2015.

Who Does What / Next Steps:

JN: AB will be organizing follow up meetings to scope project / milestones /

deliverables, and new information from follow up meetings with Steve Moore (to

involve GU researchers) and Tony Cipriano, Senior Technical Manager at GU for

implementation guidance.

Implementation of BOINC / WCG on GU classroom labs: Tony Cipriano is

responsible for coordinating. Per JN, Students to draft email for follow up meeting to

brief Tony + address any questions or concerns. Per AM, PCs are marginally easier

than OSX (Apple) systems to setup and keep running.


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VIII. Interview: Michael Cummings & Adam Bazinet; Pioneers for UMD-‐ The

Lattice Project

Date: October 13, 2014, 3:30 pm. Teleconference.


- What are the advantages you have seen regarding the use and deployment of

BOINC at UMD and in general; why did your team use BOINC software?

A1 UMD:

- BOINC has advantage because it is easy to connect to any other BOINC

project that exists.

- BOINC offers a lot of options, you know the resources BOINC uses... you can

set the disk space, CPU, and throttle back as needed. These are shared

resources. Set to run as computer is in use, is very flexible.

- UMD uses a hybrid of BOINC and CONDOR for our project. If you want local

users-‐ CONDOR is the best approach. If you have big projects, BOINC is a

good approach. If you go BOINC, established projects benefit the most. The

ideal BOINC user is someone with a big project, and lot of jobs to run. Lattice

runs multiple applications, If researcher X has to do something small-‐ would

not be worth rolling out BOINC project. CONDOR can run arbitrary code.


- How difficult is it to set up/implement BOINC?

A2 UMD:

- BOINC is pretty straightforward, CONDOR can be a little more involved for

implementation. We have helped people set up at other institutions before.


- Could this be a service fee/implemented with CONDOR route?


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A3 UMD:

- Around the last 20 yrs, things around that have been explored. Variety of

businesses have come and gone. Some brokers have formed, others have

acted as consultants for businesses and institutions. None of them have been

viable. Dominant paradigm is cloud computing-‐ most likely going to go to

amazon.


- What are the estimated costs to maintain and run internally hardware or

energy wise?

A4 UMD:

- There are: energy costs-‐ 1)alternative is buying time on dedicated resources

or buying big computer cluster, it is much cheaper to do distributed desktop-‐

energy costs are trivial or non-‐existent; 2) costs for labor and setting up:

BOINC is low cost to set up for existing project; to set up new project, it can

be costly.


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VIII. Draft Email for Tony Cipriano, Written on Request of Georgetown University CTO Judd Nicholson: I wanted to touch base with you regarding an exciting initiative that UIS Faculty member Arnie Miles is spearheading on with three SCS students (Tyler Gray, Annabel Berman and Kyle Facada) completing their capstone project for a Masters in Technology Management. As you may be aware, there is a small, but active group of staff and students here at GU who are utilizing both university owned and personal computers to ‘donate’ their unused computer / processor time to the “World Community Grid” in order to help advance scientific and medical research across a variety of areas. As UIS has vetted the World Community Grid (WCG) / BOINC software program to run on GU owned systems, we would like to expand the scope of participation in a phased rollout to begin with UIS operated systems (PC and Mac) and eventually expand to all shared systems in classrooms / open spaces. We would also like to offer all GU staff / students the opportunity to opt-‐in to using their own systems to contribute to the overall standing of the “Georgetown University Faculty and Staff” group via a to be created UIS portal. Our goals for this initiative are to:

● Contribute to GU’s research mandate for the public good by utilizing existing resources for scientific and medical research.

● Increase overall participation, to improve GU’s ranking from #60 to the top-‐ten.

● Track and report on GU’s present and future contributions to WCG projects via GU’s website + social media channels.

In the longer term, we hope to be able to offer GU researchers the ability to run their own big-‐data analytics projects on this system. In the coming weeks Arnie will be coordinating a series of meetings to get the ball rolling on this, and we would of course appreciate your guidance and support as we continue to plan and execute this initiative! Please feel free to reach out to Arnie and the SCS students directly for more background on their work to date.


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IX. Email: Notification from Arnie Miles that BOINC / WCG Rollout Has

Started


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