We have just started the second part of the beta test for single validation for FightAIDS@Home and Discovering Dengue Drugs - Together.

Single validation is going to work in the following way:

Workunits are loaded into BOINC with a quorum size of 1. This means that 1 replica is created and it will only take 1 successfully run result in order for validation to be attempted on the result.

However, there are a few checks in place:

1) The server maintains a value that serves to inform us of how 'reliable' a given computer is. When a result is assigned to the computer for a workunit with a quorum of 1, then the reliable measurement is checked to make sure that the computer is sufficiently reliable. If it is, then all is good. If it isn't, then the workunit is changed to have a min_quorum of two and a second copy is sent.

2) When validation is attempted, the value for the host is checked again. If the value has fallen below the required level, then the result is marked INCONCLUSIVE and another result is sent.

3) Additionally, during validation, there is a certain random chance that the result will be flagged to be checked again. Any result picked in this case will be marked INCONCLUSIVE until the validation with the additional result occurs. All computers are subject to random checking.


4) We have also added some additional checks within the research apps to detect errant results. Part of this is a short run of the application that computes a known result (this was part of what we ran last week). This short run will be used to help ensure that the computation ran correctly as well as it will be used to determine the appropriate credit to award.


[edit - clarified point three]