BOINC Terminology: W

Waiting to run - Used in BOINC 5.8.3 and above. The new terminology for preempted. A result that has run and is paused will now show this status in BOINC Manager/Tasks.

Watchdog (from Rosetta) - Rosetta has a "watch dog" in place which helps assure that a given task is crunching properly, and to abort it for you if it is not progressing. So, again, when in doubt, let it run.

Work Generator - The work generator creates new workunits and their input files. As an example, the SETI@home work generator reads digital tapes containing data from a radio telescope, divides this data into files, and creates a workunit in the BOINC database. The work generator sleeps if the number of unsent results exceeds a threshold, limiting the amount of disk storage needed for input files.

Work Unit - A term used to signify a piece of work from any of the projects. One work unit is divided in multiple tasks. It's these tasks which are sent out to you, the cruncher and returned to the project. All returned tasks make up the work unit again. The work unit will stay on the project's servers until all tasks sent out and returned are validated and assimilated.

Work Fetch Policy - A policy running in the background when BOINC runs that is constantly checking: When should the core client ask a project for more work, which project should it ask and how much work should it ask for?

It depends on the Long Term Debt, the amount of work still in queue, the speed of the processor.

Write to Disk Interval - The time in seconds that BOINC writes the status on an application's crunching to disk. In preferences set default at 60 seconds, but science applications can override this (from anywhere to every 3 seconds to every 300 seconds).

WU - Abbreviation for Work Unit.

Original writer	Original FAQ	Date
Jorden	149	25-01-2007