ESO

WANdisco Stars in Discovery of New Planets.

"Slow and unreliable satellite-based network access from our remote observatory, located 5000 meters above sea level in the Chilean Andes made access to the source code repository in Germany quite unpredictable for our developers based there. At the same time, we needed to improve network performance between all of our development sites in America, Japan and Europe. WANdisco's solution enabled us to achieve what we were after with dramatically improved efficiency and productivity globally, without any downtime."

–Erik Allaert, European Divisional Software Manager, European Southern Observatory, ESO

Background

One of ESO's key projects that led to the discovery of the new solar system is the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) — a state-of-the-art telescope located 5000 meters above sea level in the Chilean Andes. The software developers working on this project are based at ALMA and other sites scattered across the globe. Prior to WANdisco, they all accessed a single CVS server in Munich, Germany. Network performance and reliability were major problems and downtime was frequent, especially at the ALMA observatory site. Due to its remote location the only available access is a high latency, low throughput satellite connection.

ESO's Challenge

• Poor network performance between ESO’s remote sites in North America and Japan and the CVS server in Germany made delivery of software needed by ESO’s astronomers extremely unpredictable, slowing down their research efforts.

• Access from the ALMA observatory site was particularly unreliable. Due to its remote location, ALMA is forced to rely on a high latency, low throughput satellite-based connection.

• Downtime was frequent, leaving developers in Chile and other locations unable to access the CVS server for several hours at a time.

• ESO needed a replication solution that provided fast read and write speeds for every site regardless of network conditions.

  

The Solution

• WANdisco’s replication solution allows identical source code repositories to be hosted thousands of miles apart and keeps them continuously in sync.

• Users at every site have the latest changes from everywhere immediately and simultaneously as if they were all working together at one location.

• The solution is completely transparent to users and administrators.

• Backup and disaster recovery are automatic.

• The entire implementation can be monitored and administered from a single location

The Results

• Now users in Chile, Germany, North America and Japan all have LAN-speed access to the source code repository.

• Developer productivity and repository access are unaffected by location – users at every site can perform their own builds with LAN-speed performance and the latest changes from everywhere are available to all users immediately and simultaneously.

• Large checkouts that used to take more than two hours at remote sites, now take less than ten minutes.

• ESO has been able to implement continuous build processes – there is a rebuild of different versions of software daily.

• Update conflicts and other problems are identified and resolved quickly, before project deadlines are impacted.

• ESO is able to operate 24-by-7 with no downtime, even for maintenance.

About ESO
The European Southern Observatory, is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive astronomical observatory. ESO provides state-of-the-art research facilities to astronomers and astrophysicists, allowing them to conduct front-line science in the best conditions. ESO is a major contributor to ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) — a state-of-the-art telescope to study light from some of the coldest objects in the universe. This light has wavelengths of around a millimetre, between infrared light and radio waves, and is therefore known as millimeter and submillimeter radiation. More information on ESO is available at http://www.eso.org