Using IBM Aspera®’s patented high-speed transfer technology, NI synchronizes large software builds between teams around the world from its centralized data center in Austin, Texas to significantly accelerate its follow-the-sun development. The deployment has made development timelines and costs more predictable while reducing the risk of delivery. Now NI is more responsive to customers and ultimately develops innovative products and features faster.
To maintain an efficient and continuous development cycle, all updates to the code base from any of NI's remote sites need to be synchronized with its central data center, then synchronized back out to the remote offices.
The NI and Aspera teams worked together to develop a tailored solution for multi-site data transfer and synchronization to quickly and securely collect and distribute large software builds.
Today, more than 6,000 end users dispersed around the world need access to NI’s code bases and software builds. This includes 2,000 developers that work continually on code bases, product and test teams that need to access exports and installers, and sales and marketing teams that need to access full release packages. To maintain an efficient and continuous development cycle, all updates to the code base from any of the remote sites need to be synchronized with its central data center, then synchronized back out to the remote offices.
With each file ranging from 1 KB to 32 GBs in size, and an average size of .5 MB, NI’s code repository had grown to more than 300 TBs. Unreliable HTTP-based data transfers were forcing teams to wait several days to receive and work on the software builds, negatively impacting productivity and ultimately response times to customers.
The NI and Aspera teams worked together to develop a tailored solution for multi-site data transfer and synchronization to quickly and securely collect and distribute large software builds, even in countries that have restrictive network security and firewall policies and that are prone to high congestion, latency and packet loss.
The Aspera transfer server software with Aspera Sync is now deployed in 17 of its remote global locations, all without requiring changes to NI’s R&D workflows. The team is able to centrally monitor and manage the entire transfer environment using Aspera Console.
With Aspera, NI R&D teams can work continually on the latest software builds. Over the last 18 months, the build process was shortened from an average of four days down to four hours. The teams are able to be more responsive to customers and can innovate more quickly as a result of the predictable delivery timelines and costs, and due to reduced risks previously associated with the development build process.
The Aspera solution also helped address a critical, unexpected problem involving a significant system failure just prior to quarter close. Using Aspera, NI quickly recovered all its files in hours versus the typical four day recovery time, enabling it to meet its critical shipment deadline and recognize quarterly revenue.
NI (link resides outside of ibm.com) empowers engineers and scientists with a software-centric platform that incorporates modular hardware and an expansive ecosystem. This proven approach puts users firmly in control of defining what they need to accelerate their system design within test, measurement and control. NI’s solution helps build high-performance systems that exceed requirements, quickly adapt to change and ultimately improve the world.
Legal
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2018. IBM Cloud, New Orchard Road, Armonk, NY 10504
Produced in the United States of America, January 2018.
IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, and IBM Cloud are trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the web at “Copyright and trademark information” at ibm.com/trademark.
This document is current as of the initial date of publication and may be changed by IBM at any time. Not all offerings are available in every country in which IBM operates. The performance data and client examples cited are presented for illustrative purposes only. Actual performance results may vary depending on specific configurations and operating conditions. THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF NON-INFRINGEMENT. IBM products are warranted according to the terms and conditions of the agreements under which they are provided.