O2Micro

O2Micro Eliminates Downtime and Slow Networks Between the US and China, Reducing Development Cycles by Over 30%

"A slow network caused remote users in China to hold back checking in changes. We spent a lot of time dealing with merge conflicts, broken builds, QA and rework. Now, with WANdisco, remote users check in constantly. The latest changes are always there everywhere and those problems are gone."

–Steve Krems, IT Director, O2Micro

Background

Like many companies in the chip design space, O2Micro tried using Perforce, but found that Perforce’s caching approach didn’t work well for distributing source code beyond two sites. Perforce also wasn’t cost effective for them, so they made the switch to CVS to support more than 1000 developers at five sites including: Santa Clara, Beijing, Chengdu, Singapore and Romania. Before implementing CVS MultiSite, O2Micro relied on a central CVS server.

O2Micro's Challenge

• Slow networks led developers in China to checkout source code on Monday and hold back checking in changes until Friday.

• Merge conflicts from the previous week’s changes meant extra QA and rework, causing deadlines to slip and new products to be delayed.

• O2Micro relied on manual backup and recovery procedures that often led to extended downtime and data loss after network and server outages.

• O2Micro wanted to operate on a 24-by-7 basis, but had to contend with over two hours of downtime each day for maintenance.

• With so many offshore developers, O2Micro’s auditors were concerned about intellectual property protection and compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) and other regulations.

  

The Solution

• Development cycles have been reduced by over 30%. Since network performance is no longer a problem, developers checkout and checkin constantly. As a result, merge conflicts and other issues are found and fixed immediately, reducing QA and rework.

• CVS MultiSite’s built-in hot backup and automated recovery features eliminated extended downtime and data loss after network and server failures, even after a major earthquake cut communication between the US and China.

• O2Micro is now 24-by-7 because CVS MultiSite’s built-in backup and recovery features have been used to avoid over 2 hours of downtime each day for maintenance.

• Automated access control and audit features removed the risk of intellectual property loss and enabled O2Micro to achieve SOX compliance.

The Results

• Development cycles have been reduced by over 30%.

• Extended downtime and data loss from manual recovery procedures have been eliminated.

• Downtime for routine maintenance has been reduced from over 2 hours each day to 0.

• Implementation took less than an hour for each site.

• Intellectual property protection and SOX compliance have beenachieved.

• O2Micro’s development organization is now 24-by-7.

About O2Micro
Founded in April 1995, O2Micro develops and markets innovative power management and security components and systems for the Computer, Consumer, Industrial, and Communications markets.  O2Micro’s products are used by Acer, Compaq, Dell, Ericsson, First International Computer, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, IBM, NEC, Sharp, Siemens, Sony and Toshiba. O2Micro is listed on the NASDAQ under the symbol: OIIM.