Long term vision for FAH: Science, clients, etc

It's been a while since I've posted on this topic, so I thought it would be a good time to talk about the long term vision for FAH.  In the first few years, we have done a lot to build up methodology (novel distributed computing algorithms, tests of methods), especially in the last years working to bring GPU's, PS3's, and tightly coupled SMP calculations to a distributed computing platform.  While all of this has been going on, there has been a lot of work which would have a direct impact to disease and human health, and donors should see more results (i.e. papers) coming out in this direction soon.  In particular, results on Alzheimer's Disease, Huntington's Disease, and some other surprises in the works (sorry, some details are best left until peer review is done).

In terms of a long term vision for the FAH software, our short term goals is to shore up the SMP client.  Just as there was a big improvement from the GPU1 -> GPU2 client, we have been working steadily on an SMP2 client -- a version which is much easier to use, requires less donor effort, and scales much better.  This really is a combination of a modified client and (especially) new cores.  This effort has been going on for about a year and it's far enough along that I'm starting to talk about it publicly.

In the previous post, I also mentioned about some of our work behind the scenes in revamping the backened of FAH, i.e. a whole new set of server codes.  We have code for the workserver and collection servers, but in time we expect the full backend to be cleanly rewritten from scratch.

Longer term, with a more solid GPU2 and SMP2 clients done, we can then move on to other areas.  Our goal is to be bleeding edge in the nature of our science, but get back to the simplicity and stability found in the classic client.  We still have a ways to go, but I am excited that projects that were started some time ago are now looking like they will see the light of day.

Comments

[Adam A. Wanderer]

Thanks! Your efforts for all of us are greatly appreciated. I'm looking forward to using the improved clients and watching the results move the science of proteins forward. Everyone knows the massive amount of work it has taken to develop a project of such size and complexity. I doubt very many other scientists would have been able to do even half as well for such long range goals.

[Steve]

Keep up the good work Vijay, and we'll keep on Folding@Home, work, or wherever we're at!

[Bob]

Can you tell us when a GPU2 Linux client will be released?

[Zan]

This project and others like it give us hope that we`re finally putting our big mammal brains at work for something constructive. i`m very proud to be part of such an experiment and i have only one question since i`m a filistine in the inner workings of science and stuff. to put it simply: how long is it gonna take until you (we) find the cures for those diseases? i`m just curious. thanks Vijay and all of the f@h users.

[DocJonz]

I'll echo Bob's comments, since "with more solid GPU2 and SMP2 clients done, we can then move on to other areas" - I think the Linux GPU2 client is one such "other area"??!