MacResearch

Results of molecular dynamics calculations performed with OpenMacGrid recently appeared in an article in the Journal of Chemical Physics [J. Chem. Phys. 128, 194715 (2008); DOI:10.1063/1.2920488]. The study included results from classical molecular dynamics, which were performed on OpenMacGrid, and the first ever full-dimensional quantum dynamics calculations for a stepped-surface reaction. The latter are very expensive, and were performed on a massively-parallel supercomputer.

We started the OpenMacGrid project almost a year and a half ago. 'We' = MacResearch, of course. Thanks to all your contributions, OpenMacGrid has gathered hundreds of Macs, and has been providing several hundred GHz of computing power to the various scientific projects submitted to us. OpenMacGrid is a relatively small grid, with a definitely small budget, close to $0 actually. Thanks to the Xgrid magic, in particular with Xgrid 2.0 and Leopard, the administration of the OpenMacGrid controller has required a relatively small amount of time (which is good, because for all of us, this is a side project of a side activity). But we are proud that it has been able to achieve quite a lot, and has been running several scientific projects of very diverse nature. Speaking of Nature, OpenMacGrid has even contributed to a recent publication in a high-profile journal, thanks to Ben Bond-Lamberty efforts.

Could it be even better? Yes. Could we do more? Yes. At least, we can try... Read more

Mr. Norman Su, of the Department of Informatics, Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences University of California, Irvine will be started an OpenMacGrid project very soon, titled: Tagging Behaviors of Bloggers. A brief project abstract appears below. The OpenMacGrid continues to be a valuable resource to MacResearchers all over the globe. The Xgrid is continuing to function stably at a total capacity of about 2.0 Tera Hz, with about 50% of this grid capacity available for use at any given time.

Research Scientist Ben Bond-Lamberty is starting a project on OpenMacGrid this week to better understand carbon balance in Canadian forests. The carbon balance of forests is influenced by many factors, including fire, climate, and even the rise of CO₂ in the atmosphere. Prof. Bond-Lamberty will be using OpenMacGrid to run thousands of calculations to model the interplay between these influences.

This is a brief update on the first week of operation of the OpenMacGrid. First of all, MacResearch would like to thank all the people who so generously donated Xgrid agents. Without your contributed Mac's power, the project would simply not have been possible. The response to our call for participation was overwhelming!

Currently, the OpenMacGrid has over 800 Macs connected. Since many of these Macs have more than two processor cores, this number translates to over 1000 processors, with a total computational power of over 2.0 Tera Hz (a Tera Hz is 1000 GHz!). At any given time, only a subset of these 800 agents are available for work. Its too early for us to be able to make a statistically fair statement of how many agents are actually available for work at any specfic moment. Very crudely, about a third of the total connected agents, would be a reasonable estimate for now.

Unless you were holed up in a cave last week, you probably saw our announcement of OpenMacGrid. Gaurav Khanna will be writing a bit about the progress of OpenMacGrid soon, but I wanted to use my weekly post to demonstrate just how easy it is to run calculations on OpenMacGrid, and take advantage of its enormous computing power right now, at no cost, and with no laborious grant submissions.

There was some criticism on Slashdot from someone that noted that SETI was running on his/her Mac via OpenMacGrid. Here is an abridged version of the explanation that I posted there.

Contributing your Mac's idle processing power to the OpenMacGrid is very easy. However, before you do so, please make sure that your Mac has at least:

256 MB of Memory,
1 GB of available hard disk space,
G4 or better CPU and
Running Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger) or Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard).

Simply follow the steps outlined below to connect to the OpenMacGrid as an Xgrid agent.

This project was about studying an astrophysical event that commonly occurs in galactic nuclei i.e. the capture of a small star by a supermassive black hole. The goal of the project was to use computer simulations to obtain information about the gravitational waves that are radiated away during such events. Gravitational waves are "ripples" in space-time that travel at the speed of light. These were theoretically predicted by Einstein's Relativity, but have never been directly observed. Currently, there is an extensive search being performed for these waves by the newly constructed NSF LIGO laboratory and various other such observatories in Europe and Asia. NASA also has a mission planned in the near future, the LISA mission, that will also be attempting to detect these waves. To learn more about these waves and the recent attempts to observe them, please visit the LISA mission website.