<img src="https://i.imgur.com/RKmk55f.png" alt="Brainstorming"/>

# What is BOINC?
[BOINC](https://boinc.berkeley.edu/) is an [open-source](https://github.com/BOINC/boinc/) volunteer oriented distributed computing grid. It's free, and harnesses the unused clock cycles from processors and graphics cards to attempt to cure cancer/aids/ebola/malaria, map the milkyway, fold proteins, search for extraterrestrial life, etc.

Currently, there are approx ***250-580K*** active BOINC users & more than ***4 million*** registered accounts. There's ***serious*** computing power within the BOINC community & the vast majority goes unpaid.

### What are some examples of existing BOINC projects?
* [World Community Grid](http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/) : Attempting to solve Cancer, Ebola, Malaria, Zika, etc.
* [SETI@Home](http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/) : Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
* [Milkyway@home](http://milkyway.cs.rpi.edu/milkyway/) : Creation of a 3d map of the milkyway galaxy using data gathered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. This project enables research in both astroinformatics and computer science.

[Examples of more whitelisted projects](https://gridcoin.us/Guides/whitelist.htm).

### How does Gridcoin benefit BOINC?
The Gridcoin network rewards BOINC volunteers on behalf of the whitelisted BOINC projects. As a result, more computation is pointed towards their projects without costing the BOINC project owners a penny. The cost of computation from other distributed computing cryptocurrency networks is significantly higher!

### Who can make a BOINC project?
Anyone can create a BOINC project, there's no centralized authority in charge of the creation of BOINC projects.

### How can I make a BOINC project?
One of the easiest method of creating a BOINC project is to use the '[BOINC Server Docker](https://github.com/marius311/boinc-server-docker)' repo! 

The developer "[Marius Millea](https://github.com/marius311/)" ([Cosmology@Home](https://www.cosmologyathome.org/) dev) is very active, give him a shout if you run into issues w/ the docker container.

##### Outdated guides
* '[Creating BOINC projects (PDF)](https://boinc.berkeley.edu/boinc.pdf)'
* '[Project creation cookbook](https://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/CreateProjectCookbook)'
* '[Building BOINC and BOINC applications on linux](http://www.spy-hill.net/myers/help/boinc/boinc-on-linux.html)'

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### There are three types of BOINC projects!

#### Volunteer/non-profit
* ***Scientists***: [Use BOINC to create a volunteer computing project](https://boinc.berkeley.edu/volunteer.php).
* ***Universities***: [Use BOINC to create a Virtual Campus Supercomputing Center](https://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/VirtualCampusSupercomputerCenter).
The majority of BOINC projects are volunteer/non-profit based projects.

#### Commercial/For-Profit
* ***Companies***: [Use BOINC for desktop Grid computing](https://boinc.berkeley.edu/dg.php).
Create a commercial BOINC project, charge customer to process their data and distribute ***x***% to BOINC crunchers & ***y***% to project admins/shareholders.

##### Existing research (mostly storage decentralization, not 100% decentralized)
* [Optimizing the data distribution layer of BOINC with BitTorrent](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=4536446&newsearch=true&queryText=boinc).
* [Attic: A Case Study for Distributing Data in BOINC Projects](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=6009057&newsearch=true&queryText=boinc).
* [Extending the BOINC architecture using peer-to-peer application code exchange](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=5993689&newsearch=true&queryText=boinc).

### BOINC vs Commercial Cloud Computing
#### Research papers
* [The cost of virtualization implementation in volunteer computing](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=6914205&queryText=boinc&pageNumber=2&newsearch=true)
* [Increasing GP Computing Power for Free via Desktop GRID Computing and Virtualization](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=4912963&queryText=boinc&pageNumber=2&newsearch=true)
* [[PDF] Cost-Benefit Analysis of Cloud Computing versus Desktop Grids](http://mescal.imag.fr/membres/derrick.kondo/pubs/kondo_hcw09.pdf)

#### Research TL;DR: (Note - 7 year old statistics!)
  * In the best-case scenario, hosts register at a rate of 124 cloud nodes per day.
  * The ratio of volunteer nodes needed to achieve the compute power of a small EC2 instance is about 2.83 active volunteer hosts to 1.
  * Effectively, with a commercial BOINC project, there exists the opportunity to create a cloud computing service without actually owning/providing the computing capabilities yourself. Imagine creating Azure at a fraction of the cost..

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### Got an idea for a BOINC project?

Do you have an idea for a potential BOINC project, or do you have questions about either BOINC or Gridcoin? Reply below!

#### Past threads
[#007](https://steemit.com/gridcoin/@cm-steem/7th-boinc-project-brainstorming-thread-need-100k-cpus-come-talk-about-it) (2+ years ago!)
[#006](https://steemit.com/gridcoin/@cm-steem/brainstorming-boinc-projects-006)
[#005](https://steemit.com/gridcoin/@cm-steem/brainstorming-boinc-projects-005-february-2017)
[#004](https://steemit.com/gridcoin/@cm-steem/brainstorming-boinc-projects-004)
[#003](https://steemit.com/boinc/@cm-steem/brainstorming-boinc-projects-003)
[#002](https://steemit.com/gridcoin/@cm-steem/brainstorming-new-boinc-projects)
[#001](https://steemit.com/gridcoin/@cm-steem/brainstorming-new-boinc-projects-anyone-can-create-a-project-and-reward-their-users-with-gridcoin)