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2011-08-23: Thank-you all

Dear volunteers,

Your contribution over the last 3 years to the AQUA@home project was critical for us to perform immense computations necessary for the advancement of our science and technology. We have published several scientific papers reporting the results of those computations, including our recent publication in Nature. We made sure to acknowledge your generous contributions in those papers, as your help was vital. At this time, however, we no longer have large computations requiring the computing power of AQUA@home. We therefore have come to the decision to shut down AQUA for the forseeable future. Thank-you again for the selfless devotion of your time, patience, and computing resources to our effort to progress the field of quantum computing.

Sincerely,
Neil Dickson

A list of the scientific papers you've helped make possible:

Investigating the Performance of an Adiabatic Quantum Optimization Processor, in Quantum Information Processing, preprint available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1006.4147

Robust Parameter Selection for Parallel Tempering, in International Journal of Modern Physics C, Volume 21, issue 5, 2010, preprint available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1004.2840

High-Performance Physics Simulations Using Multi-Core CPUs and GPGPUs in a Volunteer Computing Context, in International Journal of High Performance Computing Applications, Volume 25, No. 1, 2011, preprint available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1004.0023

Importance of Explicit Vectorization for CPU and GPU Software Performance, in Journal of Computational Physics, Volume 230, Issue 13, 2011, preprint available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1004.0024

A Performance Comparison of CUDA and OpenCL, preprint available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.2581

Quantum Annealing with Manufactured Spins, in Nature, Volume 473, Issue 7346, 2011

Algorithmic Approach to Adiabatic Quantum Optimization, preprint available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.3303

2011-07-25: The AQUA server was taken offline over the weekend

Our system admin noticed very heavy network traffic to and from the AQUA server and took the server off line. The problem may be due to the short-running TEST workunits that require big input files.

2011-07-22: AQUA server will be rebooted

To finish the process of updating the OS, the AQUA server will be rebooted shortly.

2011-07-14: User, Host, and Team credit were rolled back

I just set the total_credit, expavg_credit, and expavg_time values for users, hosts, and teams to be the same as those of 19-June-2011.

I'll be releasing a few hundred FP and TEST workunits to test the credit system. Please note that BOINC's CreditNew is at work now, and the amount of granted credit will not be the same as before.

2011-07-12: Source files of AQUA's original application are released

We are happy to announce the the source files of the original AQUA application have been released. We've also included sample executable files for 32- and 64-bit Mac, Linux, and Windows platforms, as well as CUDA and OpenCL. The purpose of the release is 1) to allow our volunteers to see what they were running on their computers, and 2) to present our programming techniques to people interested in developing high performance/scientific applications.

You can download the package from http://aqua.dwavesys.com/AQUAPT_release_1.zip
Some papers on the techniques used in this software can be found at http://aqua.dwavesys.com/aqua_papers.html

2011-07-08: Credit rollback!!!

In preparation for a credit rollback, I've emptied the queues of all work. Please feel free to cancel any tasks that you may be running. Please run tasks from other BOINC projects until we sort out the credit mess.

2011-07-05: Work on the AQUA server has been resumed

We have started submitting new work. If you still receive an error message regarding bad XML format, please detach and reattach to the project.

2011-06-27: AQUA server is recovering from a serious problem

Last week the AQUA server had to be shut down because many configuration files were accidentally deleted. We are working on gradually repairing the damage, and will start submitting new work as soon as we are reasonably confident that everything is fine. This could take a few days. We believe the database is intact and no one has lost any credit. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused our volunteers.

2011-06-17: Server Outage

The AQUA@home server will probably be offline this Saturday, possibly this evening, and should come back online later this weekend.

The building we're in requires a yearly power system test where the power will be shut off for several hours this Saturday, and we need to shut down our servers ahead of time to avoid any associated problems. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

2011-05-20: A new test application

We'll be running a limited number of tasks belonging to a new application. It is only available for 64-bit Linux, and doesn't support checkpointing. It is a single-threaded app, and each run shouldn't take much longer than a few hours. Please login to you AQUA account and change your AQUA@home preferences if you don't want to run this app.

2011-05-20: Please consider upgrading your BOINC client

AQUA needs to set per-application limits, so hosts won't download too many tasks from each application. Doing so is possible only with 6.12.8 and higher BOINC client versions. Please consider upgrading your BOINC client. If you the upgrade, please note that the old "Messages" tab is now available under "Advanced/Event Log" menu item.

2011-05-02: The server is online

More RAM was added and the server is now online.

2011-05-02: AQUA server will be down briefly

The AQUA server will be turned off to install more RAM in it. We expect the downtime to be very short.

2011-01-25: The server is back up

We replaced the aging harddrives with new ones, and this time they are in a RAID configuration. The OS was updated too, which means we had to reinstall many software components. Backing up and restoring our files took days, but are now mostly finished. Please be patient while we fix the remaining problems over the next little while.

2011-01-22: Open-heart surgery on the server the weekend!

The AQUA server needs new hard drives. This weekend (starting 22-Jan-2011) our sysadmin will install bigger and more reliable hard drives, and then transfer the main file system such that we won't have to reinstall anything. If things go smoothly, the server will be down for several hours. Otherwise the server may be down multiple days.

2011-01-22: Open-heart surgery on the server this weekend!

The AQUA server needs new hard drives. This weekend (starting 22-Jan-2011) our sysadmin will install bigger and more reliable hard drives, and then transfer the main file system such that we won't have to reinstall anything. If things go smoothly, the server will be down for several hours. Otherwise the server may be down multiple days.

2011-01-14: Maintenance work on the AQUA server

Our sysadmin will be installing new much-needed hard drives in the server today (14-January-2011). Doing so requires bringing down the server for a few hours.

2010-12-24: Mass testing of the ROQS application will begin

We have been performing test runs on the ROQS (Redfield Open-system Quantum Simulation) application for the past few days. We will be deploying a large number of test units today (24-Dec-2010). Please bear with us while we remove the kinks.

2010-09-29: Transitioner problems

Due to an error on our part, we expect to see BOINC's transitioner process to stop working every once in a while. This will cause delays in credit assignment, but we will be restarting this process as often as necessary.

2010-06-30: Ther server is back

As you probably guessed, the maintenance work took longer than expected, but the server is up and running now.

2010-06-30: The server is back

As you probably guessed, the maintenance work took longer than expected, but the server is up and running now.

2010-06-29: Another round of server maintenance

The server will be down around 12 pm local time today (29-June-2010) for a couple of hours.

2010-06-28: Server will be down for maintenance

The server will be down for maintenance today (28-June-2010) starting at 5 pm local time. The expected downtime is about 1 hour.

2010-06-24: AQUA's technical papers

A list of AQUA's technical papers is available at http://aqua.dwavesys.com/aqua_papers.html . It is a pleasure to share our scientific and technical findings with others, and we enthusiastically thank our volunteers for enabling us to produce the results that are presented in these papers!

2010-04-30: FP workunits are available for crunching

There are new FP workunits available. These workunits adapt to the number of available cores, so computers with fewer cores will finish workunits faster than before. Note that BOINC's predicted completion time for these units may be off. The progress bar gives a better idea of the time to complete a workunit.

2010-04-23: Server is back online

The server is now online. Thanks for your patience!

2010-04-21: Server maintenance on Thursday, 22-April-2010

The AQUA server will be down for maintenance on Thursday, 22-April-2010, starting at 12 PM Pacific time. The work involves copying a large amount of data and may take several hours.

2010-04-16: Server maintenance delayed

Due to an urgent need to run the Fokker-Planck (FP) application, AQUA server's maintenance is delayed for now. We have emptied the other queues so FP work can get done (as a colleague puts it:) As Quickly As Possible (AQUAP).

2010-04-15: Server will be down for scheduled maintenance

Maintenance work needs to be done by our System Administrator on a number of servers, including AQUA. Quoting our sysadmin: "The outage period starts from 9 AM on Saturday, 17th April 2010 and could continue till 9 PM on Sunday, April 18th 2010. I expect any given server to not be down more than half a day but the outage could occur anytime during the maintenance window."

2010-03-16: Scheduled Server Downtime

Our sysadmin needs to perform some maintenance work that affects the AQUA server. Downtime will begin on Saturday, 20th March 2010 @ 9 AM pacific time, and services should be restored by 9 PM on Saturday, 20th March 2010, barring unforeseen events.

2010-03-01: The AQUA server will be shutdown tomorrow for scheduled maintenance

The server will be down for a few hours tomorrow (Tuesday, 2-Mar-2010). Our Sysadmin needs to do some hardware upgrades, and we'll be updating the OS.

2010-02-20: Help needed to analyze promising quantum processor data

The AQUA project is getting promising data from D-Wave's quantum processors. The project is currently running a large number of simulations to help analyze this data. Anyone in the BOINC community with available CPU capacity would be very welcome to help out. The applications are now highly optimized and pay well. Please spread the word among your team members if you are interested in this scientific effort.

(Re-posted because News thread should have been locked. Feel free to discuss on our main board: http://aqua.dwavesys.com/forum_forum.php?id=3)

2010-02-20: Help needed to analyze promising quantum processor data

OK

2010-02-20: Help needed to analyze promising quantum processor data

You mean:

AQUA?

or

FOKKER_PLANCK?

or

IQUANA?

???

check the queue: http://aqua.dwavesys.com/server_status.php

large numbers only to be seen on FP..

2010-02-20: Help needed to analyze promising quantum processor data

The AQUA project is getting promising data from D-Wave's quantum processors. The project is currently running a large number of simulations to help analyze this data. Anyone in the BOINC community with available CPU capacity would be very welcome to help out. The applications are now highly optimized and pay well. Please spread the word among your team members if you are interested in this scientific effort.

2010-02-18: In the next few weeks emphasis will be on FP workunits

Recently we have been performing a lot of simulations using the Fokker-Planck application, and this trend will continue for a while. The Fokker-Planck application supports single-core CPUs (SSE2 is required) and gives out about the same amount of credit as the original aqua application.

2010-01-07: A small number of FP work units released!

We needed to confirm a few of our observations in Fokker-Planck simulations, so we released more FP work units just now. This may be repeated as needed, so don't be too surprised to see FP work units on your machines every now and then.

2010-01-06: End of Fokker-Planck simulations

We are done with the Fokker-Planck simulations, so all remaining work units have been cancelled. The main aqua application will again run on CPUs with two and more cores. The implication is that currently there are no work units for single-core CPUs, but this can change at anytime, so please leave your single-core boxes attached to AQUA@home.

Thank you.

2009-12-30: Welcome to the News forum

Yes, this is BOINC' new design.

2009-12-30: AQUA@home's main app (aqua) started again

AQUA@home's main application (used to estimate the running time of an adiabatic quantum computer) will start again. Work units will be sent to computers with 4 or more cores, while computers with 1, 2, or 3 cores will continue to run the Fokker-Planck work units.

Thanks for your help!

2009-12-23: Welcome to the News forum

We will be using this forum to communicate any AQUA@home news to volunteers.