Martin 53N 1W wrote:
[...]

There's very likely the reasonably expected server work going on as part of the change-over.

The Berkeley people, all /four/ of them work very hard to keep all this running for half a million users or so.

OK, so there is a lot of server work going on at the moment!

From the Boinc-s@h tech news:

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November 30, 2005 - 22:30 UTC
So the master database merge is at a complete standstill. Unless everything suddenly works, we probably won't embark on this adventure until after the December 15th cutoff date for SETI@home Classic. It has become a programming/database nightmare where each fix or workaround brings forth another unexpected show-stopper.
Our server closet is in flux. The SETHI project (which uses SETI@home raw data to study hydrogen in our galaxy) recently bought a new dual opteron system (4GB RAM, 3TB drives) which we wanted to rack up in our closet, but kryten (the BOINC upload/download server) was actually in the way. So we rolled kryten into our secondary lab. But first we had to route a Cogent connection and a link to our internal gigabit switch into that lab. Also in this lab are isaac (the boinc.berkeley.edu web server among other things) and jocelyn (the BOINC database server), which we hope to move in the closet shortly after Classic is shut down.

When this happens, we'll be able to turn off sagan (the Classic data server) and get it out of the way, so we can remove a set of four A5000 (disk arrays attached to galileo which hold the now-defunct Classic master science database). And all this is just the beginning of what is shaping up to be a large-scale shell game.

We also updated DNS maps and URLs to continue balancing the web load as well as move the BOINC core client downloads off isaac and onto kryten. With the warning e-mails still being sent, the new core client downloads have been peaking out at 40 Mbit/sec. Since isaac, which handles these downloads, is on the campus network, this was adversely affecting others. So we moved all that traffic onto our Cogent link, which is now close to topping out at 100 Mbit/sec at any given time. All BOINC core client downloads, SETI@home science client downloads, SETI@home/BOINC workunits and SETI@home Classic workunits are all going out over our single Cogent connection. Of course, Classic activity will ramp down significantly over the coming weeks, so bandwidth constraints shouldn't be an issue.
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Don't say the devs don't say anything. Looks like they're busy!


Happy crunchin',
Martin