The World Community Grid
Grid computing is an interesting and worthwhile hobby, one that perhaps many visitors here might enjoy, and therefore this quickie outline is provided.
The expression "grid computing", as used here, is where private individuals, schools, universities, companies large and small, link a portion of their computer resources to form a massive network engaged in pure scientific research.
This network spans the globe, forming a virtual supercomputer that works on a wide variety of scientific and/or humanitarian projects.
The term "grid computing" has also been used to describe cloud computing where, for example, a large company with massive computing power sells some of that computing power, providing various ways for outsiders to tap into and use their computer systems.
The grid computing discussed here is not cloud computing in that sense and instead is the volunteer computer network described earlier and in the next paragraph, cut and pasted in from the WC Grid website.
World Community Grid is a huge and growing network of over one million individual computers. Working together, they are providing scientists with tremendous computational power — equivalent in size to the world's 8th largest supercomputer — to accelerate their research on some of the world's most critical problems, including human disease, world hunger and climate change.
This is all volunteer work and, generally speaking, people donate unused cycles of computer time, with the software that runs these projects (BOINC) working quietly in the background, slowing or stopping entirely when necessary to accommodate whatever work is underway by the computer operator.
The name "BOINC" stands for Berkley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing and here's their Wiki description. The SETI project it mentions (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) is the one that caught my eye some years ago and first got me started with grid computing.
A reward system of credits for work completed is employed, so we can all keep score and track how we're doing. In that vein, the banner at the top of this page is a widget that displays a user name at WC Grid, in this case Aurelius, plus total credits earned and overall ranking.
At the moment, three WC GRID projects are running here, one that investigates new ways to provide clean water, another is working on clean energy, and the third is the muscular dystrophy project. Other projects at WC GRID include research on childhood cancer and many other serious diseases.
Here's a link to the World Community Grid, where a great deal more info can be found, including how to sign on and get involved.
Here's the BOINC site, at berkeley.edu, and here's a really good article from Tech News Daily about the many other grid projects we can be involved with.
So what's it like to go grid computing? It's actually a fairly quiet sort of hobby. Once the software is installed, it runs unattended unless you want to tinker with it a little. And there's a busy forum of worldwide users at WC Grid to visit with.
Here, the daily routine is to log in at the WC Grid site around 0700 EST, shortly after the latest statistics have been posted, and check on how many credits were earned in the past 24 hours.
Usually it's about 11,000 credits, whereas the top contributors generally turn in something around 9 million credits a day ... just absolutely amazing.
That's a tempting target and someday, after the lotto winnings are banked, the plan is to front a couple hundred 12-core Mac Pro machines, all with a boat load of RAM, and turn in 10 million credits a day ... :)