WANdisco Stars in Discovery of New Planets

Solar System Discovered by the European Southern Observatory, Powered by WANdisco's Software

"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

San Ramon, CA September 22, 2010 – WANdisco, the makers of Enterprise Subversion with active core developers from the project on staff, today announced that the European Southern Observatory (ESO) deployed WANdisco's software, ahead of the organization's discovery of a new planetary system last month.

ESO found what is believed to be the richest system of exoplanets ever discovered outside our own solar system – at least five planets orbiting a star named HD10180, located 127 light years away in the southern constellation of Hydrus.

The software powering the world's most productive astronomical observatory has improved dramatically in recent months, since ESO chose WANdisco to eliminate downtime and overcome slow and unreliable networks between development sites spread across four continents here on Earth.

ESO selected WANdisco to support its developers based in Chile, New Mexico, Canada, Scotland, Germany and Japan.

One of ESO's key projects is developing the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) — a state-of-the-art telescope located some 5000 meters above sea level in the Chilean Andes that studies light from some of the coldest objects in the universe. 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, particularly at the ALMA site. Due to ALMA's remote location the only access is a high latency, low throughput satellite connection.

“In the past, we encountered problems such as not being able to access the server and extremely slow downloads over the network from Munich,” said Erik Allaert, European Divisional Software Manager for ESO.

“Thanks to WANdisco we now have LAN-speed performance for all of our developers, whether they are based in Canada, Scotland, Japan or Chile, and there's no downtime. Every site has local access – developers anywhere can do their own builds and all users have the latest changes from everywhere else. Our build cycles have been reduced dramatically, and productivity has gone way up.”

David Richards, President and CEO of WANdisco, said: "We are extremely proud to be working with ESO. They are pushing the boundaries of discovery in space. Obviously, a research organization studying the far reaches of our universe needs to have fast, reliable replication software and WANdisco's proven technology has allowed ESO to achieve performance, reliability and availability around the clock.”

Implementing WANdisco allowed ESO to:

Provide users in Chile, Europe, North America and Japan with LAN-speed access to the repository.
Enable a continuous software build process.
Reduce build cycles from over two hours to 10 minutes, increasing productivity.
Provide users at every remote site with the latest changes immediately and simultaneously.
Eliminate downtime and operate on a 24-by-7 basis.
Identify and investigate update conflicts and other operational issues quickly, before project deadlines are affected.

Learn more about how ESO is saving time and money by using WANdisco at: /news/case-studies/eso

For pricing and sales information, please contact your WANdisco sales representative at +1-866-846-0404, or on the web at http://www.wandisco.com/subversion/multisite.

Certified Subversion 1.6.12 Binaries Available for Free Download

WANdisco recently announced that it had made certified Subversion 1.6.12 binaries available for free download at: http://www.wandisco.com/subversion/os/downloads. WANdisco's certified Subversion binaries provide a complete, fully tested version of Subversion based on the most recent stable release, including the latest fixes. These freely available, certified Subversion binaries undergo the same rigorous quality assurance process that WANdisco uses for its enterprise products that support the world's largest Subversion deployments, with over 40,000 users, 2500 repositories and 18 million transactions per day in a single implementation. Free community support for WANdisco's certified Subversion binaries is available with registration at: http://subversion.wandisco.com.

Automated Updates & Integration with Third Party Tools Such as Trac

Customers that combine a WANdisco Subversion support contract with WANdisco's Certified Subversion Binaries have the added benefit of automated access to the latest fixes and updates. WANdisco's Certified Subversion Binaries can be used with other open source software such as Trac, the popular issue tracker and wiki, and the many other software products that can be integrated with Subversion.

Buy a Support Contract & Support Subversion!

WANdisco also recently announced that the profits from the sale of its Subversion support contracts go directly toward the hiring of additional Subversion committers and supporting the activities of the community. Due to the success of its Subversion support services offerings, WANdisco has been able to hire senior Subversion committers such as Hyrum Wright, Julian Foad, Phillip Martin, Stefan Kung, Erik Huelsmann and others who have come on board recently.

Enterprise-Class Subversion Support Services

WANdisco's Subversion support services are backed by a dedicated team of core Subversion development, QA and support professionals based at the company's offices in the US and the UK. As a result, all of WANdisco's Subversion support customers have access to secure, high quality live support and immediate fixes on a 24-by-7 basis regardless of where they're located. This level of support is critical when problems arise and it's the reason why so many organizations switch to WANdisco. The team is led by Hyrum Wright, WANdisco's Director of Open Source. Hyrum has also been the release manager for the Subversion project since early 2008.

Support options include:

24-by-7 Online, Phone and Email Support.
Guaranteed response times.
Global coverage from the United States and Europe.
Automated delivery of fixes and upgrades.
Technical Account Managers who act as a single point of contact for critical issues.
Indemnification coverage to protect against third party intellectual property claims.
Security solutions that deliver automated access control and audit reporting.
Semi-annual Subversion System Health Check.
Bug Buddy – A senior Subversion committer who champions customer enhancement requests.

WANdisco's Subversion support services are described in detail at: http://www.wandisco.com/products/svn/support.php.

WANdisco also sponsors and contributes to the TortoiseSVN project, which develops the popular Subversion client for Windows. As a result, WANdisco is able to offer free downloads of the latest fully tested version of TortoiseSVN at: http://www.wandisco.com/subversion/os/downloads . Information about enterprise-class support for TortoiseSVN can be found at: http://www.wandisco.com/products/svn/tortoise/support.php.

WANdisco Offers Free Online Subversion Training

WANdisco is currently offering a series of free online one hour bi-weekly Subversion training classes. The following classes are scheduled:

“Using the Subversion Diff Command” on September 22, 2010. From simple to complex scenarios, the diff command can show differences between Subversion projects. During this course the instructor will cover the diff command using TortoiseSVN's difference tool as well as linking TortoiseSVN to other difference programs.
“Subversion Administration Best Practices” on October 6, 2010. This training session will cover every aspect of Subversion administration including: defining policies and procedures,
training and managing staff to ensure compliance, designing repository layout, backup and recovery, use of hook scripts and locking, and log monitoring and analysis.
"All About Subversion Hook Scripts" on October 20, 2010. Hook scripts are server-side executables tied to various Subversion events. Attendees will learn how to implement hook scripts for email notification of events, commit validation, integration with issue trackers and other external systems and other common use cases.

Registration for these classes is available at: http://wandisco.com/webinar/subversion/training. WANdisco recommends early registration, as space is limited.

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.

About WANdisco

WANdisco is a leading provider of infrastructure software for replication, scalability and high availability, and a corporate sponsor of the Subversion open source project with core developers from the project on staff. By using WANdisco's totally unique replication technology, software development can now occur anywhere without any constraints. Fortune Global 1000 companies such as AT&T, Honda, NTT and Motorola rely on WANdisco's suite of source code management solutions. A recent Forrester Total Economic Impact (TEI) study of WANdisco's Subversion MultiSite revealed a 167% return on investment with a nine-month payback period. WANdisco is also a corporate sponsor of the open source Subversion project, and plays an active role with core developers from the project on staff. Subversion is recognized by Forrester as the sole leader in the Standalone Software Configuration Management (SCM) category. For more information, please visit us at: http://www.wandisco.com.

About Subversion

Apache Subversion (SVN) is a version control system initiated in 2000. It is used to maintain current and historical versions of files such as source code, web pages, and documentation. Its goal is to be a mostly-compatible successor to the widely used Concurrent Versions System (CVS). In a 2007 report by Forrester Research, Subversion was recognized as the sole leader in the Standalone Software Configuration Management (SCM) category and a strong performer in the Software Configuration and Change Management (SCCM) category.

Subversion is released under the Apache License, making it free software

For more information, please visit us at: http://subversion.wandisco.com.

Contact:
Colin Wood
Colin [dot] Wood [at] wandisco [dot] com
USA: 1-925-2262602 | UK: 0114 299 4718 | Australia: +61 415 222 805

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