computer science

Grid.org

Grid.org is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Grid.org rather than just read about it. In short: grid.org was a website and online community established in 2001 for cluster computing and grid computing software users. For six years it operated several different volunteer computing projects that allowed members to donate their spare computer cycles to worthwhile causes.

Key takeaways

Grid.org belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Grid.org to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Grid.org from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

grid.org was a website and online community established in 2001 for cluster computing and grid computing software users. For six years it operated several different volunteer computing projects that allowed members to donate their spare computer cycles to worthwhile causes. In 2007, it became a community for open source cluster and grid computing software. After around 2010 it redirected to other sites.

Volunteer computing projects From its establishment in April 2001 until April 27, 2007, grid.org was the website and organization that ran distributed computing projects such as the United Devices Cancer Research Project, led by Jikku Venkat, Ph.D. and was sponsored philanthropically by United Devices (UD) and members participated in volunteer computing by running the UD Agent software (version 3.0).

Cancer Research Project

The United Devices Cancer Research Project, which began in 2001, was seeking possible drugs for the treatment of cancer using distributed computing. There were around 150,000 users in the United States and 170,000 in Europe along with hundreds of thousands more in other parts of the world. The project was an alliance of several companies and organisations:

United Devices Inc. National Foundation for Cancer Research University of Oxford Department of Chemistry Donors of molecular research United Devices released the cancer research screensaver under the principle of using spare computing power. The program, which could be set to run continually, used "virtual screening" to find possible interactions between molecules and target proteins, i.e. a drug. These molecules (ligands) are sent to the host computer's UD Agent. When these molecules dock successfully with a target protein this interaction is scored for further investigation. The research consisted of two phases:

Phase 1 tested over 3 billion drug-like molecules against 12 proteins which were known to be suitable targets for anti-cancer drugs. It used the "THINK" software for the simulation of the molecular interactions. Phase 2, using the "LigandFit" software developed by Accelrys to model interactions, sought to refine the Phase 1 data to produce a more manageable list of drug candidates for testing that would require experimental collaborators, including some from industry.

Human Proteome Folding Project, phase 1

The IBM-sponsored Human Proteome Folding Project ("HPF"), phase 1, was announced on November 16, 2004, and was completed July 3, 2006. The project operated simultaneously on both grid.org and the IBM's World Community Grid. It made use of the "Rosetta" software to predict the structure of human proteins in order to help predict the function of proteins. This information may someday be used to help cure a variety of diseases and genetic defects. According to an announcement on the grid.org forums, after the HPF1 project was completed it was left to continue running on grid.org until August 9, 2006. During that time, members whose computers were configured to run this project got new work and spent computing resources calculating a result, but the result was returned to grid.org for points only—it was not used for scientific research. The status of the Human Proteome Folding Project caused some discussion on the grid.org forums. Most members wanted to see all available computing power directed toward the still-active cancer project, but UD representative Robby Brewer asserted that "some [users] like the screensaver". As noted above, in the end the redundant HPF1 work on grid.org was halted.

Smallpox Project The Smallpox Research Grid was a part of United Devices "Patriot Grid" initiative to fight biological terrorism. This project helped analyze potential drug candidates for a medical therapy in the fight against smallpox virus. It made use of the "LigandFit" software (that had already been used by phase 2 of the Cancer Research project), but with a specialized set of target molecules that targeted the smallpox virus. The partners of the project included University of Oxford, the University of Western Ontario, Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center, Essex University, Evotec OAI, Accelrys, and IBM. The World Community Grid largely began because of the success of this project.

Anthrax Project The Anthrax Research Project was a part of the United Devices "Patriot Grid" initiative to fight biological terrorism. It made use of the "LigandFit" software (that had already been used by phase 2 of the Cancer Research project), but with a specialized set of target molecules that targeted the advanced stages of anthrax bacterial infection. The project was operated from January 22, 2002, until February 14, 2002, and ended after a total of 3.57 billion molecules had finished screening. The results of the research project were transmitted to biological scientists in order to finish the screening of the computational simulations. The partners of the project included Oxford University.

HMMER Project The HMMER Genetic Research project made use of the Hidden Markov model to search for patterns in genetic DNA sequences.

Webload Project The Web Performance Testing project was operated as a commercial opportunity with select web hosting providers in order to help them test the scalability of their server infrastructures under periods of high-demand.

Open source grid community In November 2007, grid.org was repositioned by Univa as a community to allow users to interact and discuss open source cluster and grid related topics. It allowed users to download, get support for, contribute to, and report issues about the open source Globus Toolkit based products offered by Univa. Over 100,000 unique visitors were reported in 2008. Around mid 2010 it redirected to Unicluster.org (a Univa product) and by 2012 it redirected to Univa's main site.

See also List of volunteer computing projects

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Grid.org

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Grid.org claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Grid.org before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Grid.org ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Grid.org

In research: Grid.org appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Grid.org in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Grid.org is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Computing websites, Defunct websites, Distributed computing projects, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Grid.org outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Grid.org in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Grid.org means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Grid.org out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Grid.org in simple terms?

Why does Grid.org matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Grid.org?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Grid.org.