1) Message boards : Number crunching : What's with the tiny work units? (Message 18985)
Posted 8 Feb 2008 by Ken Phillips
Post:
What's the point in distributing work units that take a second or less to process?
The overhead of distributing them and collecting them is more than required processing time.
I get 0 credits for this and I'd rather be crunching something else. If that's your strategy for making sure folks get something to crunch then it's ludicrous.

Pete


Pete,

I presume you would prefer it if the simulation process ignored the real world possibility of loss of beam confinement, the beams wandering off somewhere and not colliding when they should, or colliding with something they shouldn't?

This is what Boinc running LHC workunits is simulating! If the simulation fails very shortly after start-up, then it shuts down and reports the data, if the real life LHC was to suffer a similar failure the consequences could well be a lot worse than just zero credits.

The short run workunits are just as valuable (may be more valuable) to the project as the ones that run to completion.

There is nothing ludicrous about building a body of scientific proof, even if it's only from simulations; and that, in common with a lot of other distributed computing is what it's about, not a race for highest earned points.

Best wishes
Ken Phillips



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