BOINC Desktop Grid Computing Primer
*Content liberally borrowed from other sources
BOINC is a platform designed originally for volunteer computing, but can manage desktop grid
computing as well. It is a middleware application that manages the submission of workunits to compute
nodes and retrieval of results.
BOINC Components
There are two major components to BOINC. The component most people are familiar with is the
BOINC Manager. This is the client-side application which makes resources available to BOINC projects.
The second component is the BOINC Server. This is where projects are housed, workunits
created, delivered, and received. It’s also the most complex part of the BOINC system. It consists of
several components mentioned below. This is where most of the effort to put together a BOINC project
will be spent.
Volunteer vs. Desktop Grid Computing
Volunteer computing (VC) and Desktop Grid (DG) computing are very similar. The key
difference is ownership of the compute nodes. If you are running a project and you neither own the
compute nodes, nor compensate the owners for their computing power – congratulations, you have a
volunteer computing project. On the other hand, if you do own (administratively, at least) the compute
nodes, this is referred to as a desktop grid computing project. For our purposes, we’ll be creating a DG
project.
The difference may be subtle, but it does slightly change the workflow of the project. VC projects
rely on the volunteer to specify what projects to join, how much time is donated, when the time is
donated, etc. With a DG project, the project administrator supplies this information. If the administrator
wants to donate 100% of available resources to his project, he/she has the ability to do so.
