Folding Forum

GreyWhiskers wrote:

Code: Select all

                                              Server IP           Name        Client     WU Avail      WUs Rcv
      Tue Dec 13 04:50:01 PST 2011          171.64.65.102        vspg2v2       GPU         16012         9292
      Tue Dec 13 05:00:00 PST 2011          171.64.65.102        vspg2v2       GPU         16040         220
      Tue Dec 13 05:10:00 PST 2011          171.64.65.102        vspg2v2       GPU         16860         2205
      Tue Dec 13 05:20:00 PST 2011          171.64.65.102        vspg2v2       GPU         16035         4215
      Tue Dec 13 05:30:00 PST 2011          171.64.65.102        vspg2v2       GPU         16865         6166
      Tue Dec 13 05:40:00 PST 2011          171.64.65.102        vspg2v2       GPU         15983         8160
      Tue Dec 13 05:50:00 PST 2011          171.64.65.102        vspg2v2       GPU         15970        10139
      Tue Dec 13 06:00:00 PST 2011          171.64.65.102        vspg2v2       GPU         16790         197
      Tue Dec 13 06:10:00 PST 2011          171.64.65.102        vspg2v2       GPU         15935         2132
      Tue Dec 13 06:20:00 PST 2011          171.64.65.102        vspg2v2       GPU         15949         4052
      Tue Dec 13 06:30:00 PST 2011          171.64.65.102        vspg2v2       GPU         15944         5975
      Tue Dec 13 06:40:00 PST 2011          171.64.65.102        vspg2v2       GPU         15901         7863
      Tue Dec 13 06:50:00 PST 2011          171.64.65.102        vspg2v2       GPU         16659         9706
      Tue Dec 13 07:00:00 PST 2011          171.64.65.102        vspg2v2       GPU         15877         169
      Tue Dec 13 07:10:01 PST 2011          171.64.65.102        vspg2v2       GPU         15943         2084
      Tue Dec 13 07:20:00 PST 2011          171.64.65.102        vspg2v2       GPU         16812         4047
      Tue Dec 13 07:30:00 PST 2011          171.64.65.102        vspg2v2       GPU         16891         6076
      Tue Dec 13 07:40:00 PST 2011          171.64.65.102        vspg2v2       GPU         16934         8145
      Tue Dec 13 07:50:00 PST 2011          171.64.65.102        vspg2v2       GPU         16895        10157

I grabbed a few hours of the details for one of the GPU servers that seemed in the stats to have a lot (10,157) of WUs received.

The WU Available count is going up and down a bit - what one would expect from the replenishment process.

But, the WU Received is cycling. The top row shows 9292, then ten minutes later, its down to 220, then monotonically goes up till it reaches 10139, then down to 197. For this sample, the cycle is hourly.

Per the definition of WU Received, that would tell me that a batch of WUs are being sent to the Stats server at the top of the hour. I presume the stats server is receiving these, but Stanford has chosen not to make the stats available quite yet.

NOTE: this is pure supposition on my part from the data.

Do you think they might be sanitizing the data due to the outage? That would make sense to me that they would want to make sure all stats are correct and validated before pushing to the public site.

It could be possible that SOME WUs have gone adrift [nothing terrible about that,really] but that until the problem is resolved 'Schtum' is the watchword ...they have SO much more data on all this -and minor worries can get amplified easily in the dark.
That's also not the donors fault- we are all little cogs in the F@H wheel, but don't actually want to be total mice

new08 wrote:It could be possible that SOME WUs have gone adrift [nothing terrible about that,really] but that until the problem is resolved 'Schtum' is the watchword ...they have SO much more data on all this -and minor worries can get amplified easily in the dark.
That's also not the donors fault- we are all little cogs in the F@H wheel, but don't actually want to be total mice

Agreed, I have been following Vijay's blog but it hasn't been updated since this weekend.

http://folding.typepad.com/

I'm getting questions about the possibility of points being lost due to this outage. I understand that work is still being sent and recieved. I have been encouraging folks to continue folding as normal.

I know the politically-correct and scientifically-correct thing to do is to keep folding, but keeping in mind that some donors DO fold for the points, I just want to make sure I am giving them the best possible advice for their circumstances. Some folks are still sore from the Bigadv changes, so I would like to be careful on this current network issue.

Can I safely assume for these donors (and continue to assert) that the points will be awarded as they should have been, bonuses intact and all? I have been looking for some kind of official word on this but can't seem to find it.

Thanks.

I just hope the stats servers have the ability to catch up on 3 days of WUs.

It would be good if Vijay's blog was updated to let people know what's going on - it's the first place I look when there's 'an issue' - or there should be some response from the new Donor Advisory Board, as this was put together with the aim, in part, of improving communication flow both ways ... come on chaps, let's have some news

Apparently Dr. Pande has a Twitter and Google+ account, but from what I've seen both have been publicly silent. So it looks like his F@h community messages involve either forum or blog posts.

Thanks for your posts. Points are still being recorded and credited; it appears that one of the databases where they're stored for display has been down since the outage. I sent email to help move this along.

kasson wrote:Thanks for your posts. Points are still being recorded and credited; it appears that one of the databases where they're stored for display has been down since the outage. I sent email to help move this along.

Thank you!!!

Just when I was starting to think that it was a test by the Pande Lab to check how much production would drop if they'd stop the points reward system...

@kasson
Thanks for the update. =)

CougTek wrote:Just when I was starting to think that it was a test by the Pande Lab to check how much production would drop if they'd stop the points reward system...

It's a test of your commitment. After the test is over, the PG will use all of these forums posts to survey how many people fold for the points, and how many people fold for the science. Then you'll need to assume the Party Escort Submission Position and cake will be served. JK, but seriously though, I've been watching the petaFLOPS and noticed that we've dropped from 9.0-9.1 x86 petaFLOPS down to 8.4, which is about a 9% drop. Of course that's not the best way to measure scientific production, and it might be just coincidence, but I just wanted to throw that out there. I hope to see everything up and running smoothly soon.

As Joe_H has said and as I've said in other posts, most of the work servers are back up so you should be sending and receiving work normally.

The database that accumulates data for the stats is still off-line. That DB is not essential to the science though it's important to many donors.

Each Work Server routinly accumulates stats records for WUs that have been returned to it. Under normal circumstances, those data are collected hourly and added to the master database. Since the DB is down, that updating process is not functioning and the records are collecting on each Work Server. Eventually, when the stats are functioning again, the data will be collected and there will be one or more massive update of everything that has happened during the outage.

I have no information about when that might change.

Jesse_V wrote:It's a test of your commitment. After the test is over, the PG will use all of these forums posts to survey how many people fold for the points, and how many people fold for the science. Then you'll need to assume the Party Escort Submission Position and cake will be served.

I really don't think the PG cares whether folks fold for the science, for the points, or for some combination of the two. Personally, I treat everyone equally and I know I really don't care what your motivation is as long as you fold.

JK, but seriously though, I've been watching the petaFLOPS and noticed that we've dropped from 9.0-9.1 x86 petaFLOPS down to 8.4, which is about a 9% drop. Of course that's not the best way to measure scientific production, and it might be just coincidence, but I just wanted to throw that out there. I hope to see everything up and running smoothly soon.

That's a combination of the servers being off-line, the stats not being accumulated, and maybe a few who have suspended processing, feeling rather indignant.

During the most serious part of the server outage, some folks couldn't get work because all the servers that have work for their particular client were off-line. As far as I can tell, that has been corrected.

I'm not sure where the petaFLOPS data is collected but my guess is that it's part of the stats system which is still down. We'll know if you see a corresponding jump in petaFLOPS when the stats system comes back on line.

Those who indignantly shut down fail to realize that there will a big jump in credits for those who keep folding and they'll miss out on the bump.

bruce wrote:Those who indignantly shut down fail to realize that there will a big jump in credits for those who keep folding and they'll miss out on the bump.

That's the first thing that comes to my mind whenever the servers have a hiccup (small or otherwise) and people start declaring that they're going to pull their clients, particularly given PG's track record in these circumstances (I can only vaguely recall one instance where points weren't tracked perfectly and donors still received a compensation credit?) I would have thought that the risk of missing out on point bump would outweigh the risk of not having points credited...