Server Overview

General
Several servers play a specific role in the distrubution and retrieval of work with the  clients.

Assignment Servers (AS)
An Assignment Server is contacted by a client when it needs a new Work Unit (WU). The AS will then assign the client to a Work Server from which it will download a new WU.

The Assignment Server acts as a load balancer for the Work Servers. And advised by the client settings, it directs the client to an approriate Work Server for new Work Units.

Note: There is more than one Assignment Server for CPU clients, and some client types have a dedicated AS.

assign.stanford.edu assign2.stanford.edu assign3.stanford.edu assign-gpu.stanford.edu

Work Servers (WS)
A Work Server is the server from which the client downloads Work Units (WUs). It is also the server to which the WU results should be uploaded when it has finished. The Work Server's IP address is recorded in each WU index of the queue.dat file and the servers are listed on the server status webpage.

If the Work Server is unable to receive results from a WU it has previously assigned, the Folding@Home clients of version 5 and above should automatically try to upload the results to the Collection Server.

Collection Server (CS)
The Collection Server is used as a backup host to receive Work Units if the Work Server is unable to handle the uploaded WU. Its IP address is recorded in each WU index of the queue.dat file, and the server is listed on the Folding@Home server status webpage. Previously 171.65.103.100 was the only Collection Server, but 171.64.122.76 was added as a second Collection Server shortly after the release of the SMP client in early 2007 to share some of the workload. 171.64.122.86 was added as a third Collection Server in early 2008.