Hi, I have read this thread: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=6873, but am unable to post on it, so I thought I'd just make a new thread.

I was wondering if there are any other ACTIVE NCI projects - the only two I know of (and run) are WUProp and Quake Catcher Network, but there must be other active projects - if you have any info, please let me know.

Thanks, from
UBT - Chris

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None of which I am aware, except La Red de Atrapa Sismos, the Mexican counterpart to QCN. Credits and user accounts are separate from QCN. Different project, same software + premise.

Surveill@Home is another nci project, but is not accepting new users and hasn't for quite some time now. I'm not sure they ever will, or if they are even still particularly active.

Generally speaking, nci projects are uncommon because most parallel or parallel-capable applications are compute-demanding, whereas a more passive, less-demanding application (e.g. a web crawler) is relatively easy to deploy without enlisting outside help - unless it's a massive undertaking, but scientific projects likely to use BOINC tend to be relatively targeted in their goals.

NCI applications are perhaps better thought of as "daemons" like the sort that one finds on UNIX-based systems (or "services" on Windows). Their primary function is to support and/or monitor the operation of another program. Dividing the compute load in such a way allows developers and end-users alike more control over the way a program runs, and also isolates the monitor from what it's monitoring in case of a crash or exception - to prevent data loss, mostly.

WUProp, for instance, simply monitors BOINC by hooking the host system at a low enough level that it can gather detailed data on project applications, at runtime, at a system-specific level. QCN and RAS are nci because they are merely monitoring the built-in accelerometer in a laptop or tablet (or the readout from a USB version) and not doing any actual processing of data.

The vast majority of BOINC projects process data rather than gathering it. In most cases, the data is already gathered by an outside source (e.g. SETI, Einstein, MilkyWay, POGS) and simply needs to be processed according to various parameters on a scale that makes anything but distributed computing a cost-prohibitive platform.

Hope that answers your question fairly well.

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There is Radioactive at home, which works on a similar vein to QCN so you'll need a sensor. This was mentioned on the second message in the thread you linked to.

http://radioactiveathome.org/boinc/

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MarkJ

There is Radioactive at home, which works on a similar vein to QCN so you'll need a sensor. This was mentioned on the second message in the thread you linked to.

http://radioactiveathome.org/boinc/

and there being only being four active/semi active sensors in the UK, two of them being mine:

http://radioactiveathome.org/map/

To get a sensor you'll need to monitor their forums repeatily, and apply as soon as they announce a batch.

Claggy

Thanks, guys :D

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