A. Beberg and V. S. Pande.
ipdps, pp.1-8, IEEE International Symposium on Parallel & Distributed Processing (2009)
ABSTRACT
Accurate simulation of biophysical processes requires vast computing resources. Folding@home is a distributed computing system first released in 2000 to provide such resources needed to simulate protein folding and other biomolecular phenomena. Now operating in the range of 5 PetaFLOPS sustained, it provides more computing power than can typically be gathered and operated locally due to cost, physical space, and electrical/cooling load. This paper describes the architecture and operation of Folding@home, along with some lessons learned over the lifetime of the project.