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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Retired Forums
Forum: Member-to-Member Support [Read Only]
Thread: WCG on a School Campus |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 15
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I'm about to try to convince my school to install WCG on the dozens of (mostly unused) computers it has. We've got several computer labs, and I estimate that several hundred none-too-shabby computers could donate a good three-quarters of their time to WCG -- a veritable gold mine of CPU cycles!
 Unfortunately, the IT department employs a tool called Deep Freeze to manage all these computers, and I am not sure that my proposal will even be feasible. And feasability really helps. Here's the deal: every night at midnight, DeepFreeze resets the hard drive of every computer on campus. I believe a master image is used, and each drive becomes essentially a duplicate of said master. The problem lies in the fact that each installation of WCG requires a unique "Device Name" to be input, and I'm not sure if Deep Freeze is able to allow each workstation to input its own Device Name. If anyone (there seems to be a lot of IT folks here) is familiar with this program, please let me know what you think. Even if you're not a techie, any suggestions on how I can get WCG past the IT department (assuming it's possible) would be greatly appreciated! Many, many thanks! .:MithrandirMage:. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
What you are describing is more than a reset. There is some sort of download to each disk to make them duplicates of the master. If there is no way to exempt a directory, then that is a killer because the Work Unit will be destroyed. If a directory can be exempted, then it might be workable. We need more information on this point.
If it looks practical, then we can ask someone official in the WCG for an opinion. Lawrence |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Either that, or you will always be returning the exact same result over and over and over and over... kinda useless...
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ski1939
Senior Cruncher Freeport, Illinois, USA Joined: Nov 17, 2004 Post Count: 209 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I don't know anything about Deep Freeze so I followed the link you provided and it looks like this FAQ and the detailed white paper it refers to may answer the question.
----------------------------------------Deep Freeze - General: Can I exempt certain folders from being Frozen? The Deep Freeze mandate is to offer 100% bullet-proof protection therefore the entire C: Drive is always Frozen in its entirety. To exempt certain folders on the C: Drive, we can map them to a location off the C: Drive such as a D: Drive, Mounted Drive or Network Drive. See our detailed whitepaper for more info. However I am not a technical type, so perhaps some of them here can look at the FAQ and white paper to determine if the WCG agent can run with Deep Freeze. Good Luck... [edited the FAQ quote to include the question "Can I exempt certain folders from being Frozen?"] ---------------------------------------- [Edit 1 times, last edit by ski1939 at Mar 29, 2005 3:47:33 AM] |
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The Few, The Proud, The Marines - Semper Fi |
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
ski1939,
The Faronics site does not seem to contain a complete program manual. I tried site search in Google, but I never could find a good description of ThawSpace, though it seems that it should be a partition other than drive C:. Lawrence |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
MithrandirMage:
The WCG team is willing to help you through this issue. Please do the following: 1. Check out our Partner program: http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/about_us/viewBecomePartner.do There is downloadable information on that page for the express purpose of having your school’s Admin & IT departments learn more about World Community Grid. This pitch will let them know that World Community Grid is not some fly-by-night endeavor. 2. For specific help working through some of the issues related to Deep Freeze, please send an email to our support mailbox. To do this start at Contact Us found at the bottom of every one of our web pages. Thank you. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I'll continue to look into DeepFreeze. If I can pull one of the IT folks into a dark alley, maybe I can squeeze some info from him.
Either that, or you will always be returning the exact same result over and over and over and over... kinda useless... Well, I agree that at midnight every night, each computer would lose all progress on the work unit it was working on at the time. But as long as each computer completes at least one work unit a day, then we should be able to make progress. Hampered progress, but progress nonetheless. I doubt that those dozens of incomplete work units being re-sent would cause any problems for WCG, but let me know if I'm wrong here. After all, I wouldn't want to go through all this fuss just to cause problems for the system. As for partnering, is that really what my school ought to do? From the looks of the current partners (Semiconductor Industry Association, Information Technology Association of Canada) it seems that a "partner" contributes more than just its computer time. But Baylor School, TN, (not Baylor University) has no special expertise or even much of a technology program. Perhaps I'm mislead as to what exactly a partner is -- perhaps hearing it explained in a way different from the web page would help. Thanks again! .:MithrandirMage:. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
The partner program basicly is away for your school ( who is the owner of the PC's) to give thier blessing that they are fully aware WCG is using thier resources.
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
MithrandirMage,
I think you are really onto something. Thinking it over, I believe that we would love to publicize a school that made the decision to officially support the WCG with its computers, no matter what restrictions were forced on us by DeepFreeze. Encouragingly, Lawrence |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
MithrandirMage,
I looked at the Baylor School web site at http://www.baylorschool.org/ and your school is quite exceptional and would make an excellent World Community Grid Partner. |
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