Severalnines Aims for the Stars With EGO Boost

Swedish database technology ensures intergalactic research data protected “to infinity and beyond” for scientists

Stockholm, Sweden and anywhere else in the world – Severalnines, the provider of database infrastructure management software, today announced its latest customer, the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO). Severalnines’ ClusterControl platform is used to manage and monitor the operations of some of EGO’s open source databases and help scientists to track, analyse and share data gathered from research on gravitational waves.

EGO is one of the world’s leading research structures devoted to the study of gravitational waves. EGO hosts the Virgo experiment, a project involving about 300 scientists spread across 19 laboratories in France, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands and Hungary. The observatory also collaborates with a wider network of scientists based in the United States and Asia. Gravitational waves were predicted one century ago by Einstein’s theory of General Relativity but they have never been observed directly, although there is indirect evidence of their existence. The direct detection of gravitational waves, the main goal of  experiments such as Virgo, will solve one of the long-standing puzzles of Einstein’s theory and provide a new powerful tool to observe the Universe.

Research on gravitational waves creates at least 6 Terabytes of new data every day. The data gathered is used for scientific research into gravitational waves and to help the development of the cutting-edge technologies used by Virgo, which span various fields, from mechanics to optics and electronics.  

The scale of data created on a daily basis provides challenges for EGO’s IT team which has to ensure research data is not lost either when at rest or in transfer. The IT team needed a robust technology which could work with various open and proprietary IT environments, and around-the-clock access to database performance and management expertise.

After a review process, Severalnines was selected by EGO in January 2015 after the team read a series of strong online reviews on how Severalnines’ ClusterControl platform manages MySQL database clusters. EGO tested ClusterControl on its Scientific Linux platform, based on the popular Red Hat system, during the trial period. The ease of installation during testing was another reason why EGO’s IT team decided to work with Severalnines beyond the trial period.

With ClusterControl, EGO can manage and monitor all database clusters on a single dashboard and reduce time spent on backing-up research data. Severalnines helped EGO to focus on new business initiatives such as improving the sharing and presentation of research data on various graphical formats.

Giuseppe Di Biase, Systems Administrator at EGO, said: “Data is so important to the work EGO carries out on a daily basis. Without it, important scientific discoveries based on gravitational waves may be missed. The Severalnines team offered excellent, personalised support and gave us practical advice on how to enhance our systems. I still learn something new every time I talk to Severalnines, they have made my job easier .”

Vinay Joosery, Severalnines CEO said: “ We are very proud at Severalnines to support the leading edge of science with the most advanced database management software. The scale of EGO’s operation is tremendous and it relies on stable and robust technology, we look forward to taking this relationship to another world.”

About Severalnines

Severalnines provides automation and management software for database clusters. We help companies deploy their databases in any environment, and manage all operational aspects to achieve high-scale availability.

Severalnines’ products are used by developers and administrators of all skills levels to provide the full ‘deploy, manage, monitor, scale’ database cycle, thus freeing them from the complexity and learning curves that are typically associated with highly available database clusters. The company has enabled over 7,000 deployments to date via its popular online database configurator. Currently counting BT, Orange, Cisco, CNRS, Technicolor, AVG, Ping Identity and Paytrail as customers.  Severalnines is a private company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden with offices in Singapore and Tokyo, Japan. To see who is using Severalnines today visit, https://severalnines.com/company.

About the European Gravitational Observatory

The European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) is a French-Italian private Consortium founded by a joint agreement between the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN). Both these research institutions equally finance the running of the Consortium since its foundation in December 2000.

In 2009 EGO was pleased to welcome the Dutch Institute for Subatomic Physics (Nikhef) as Observer within its Council. Today about 60 people work at the headquarters of EGO in Cascina, a small town about 10 kilometers from Pisa, in the Italian region of Tuscany. The main purpose of EGO is to ensure the construction of Advanced Virgo and to guarantee its operations, maintenance, and upgrade, as well as the exploitation of scientific data. EGO is integrated to the Virgo Collaboration by providing a large and crucial support to the experiment and is fully responsible for the site of the Virgo interferometer. Another key goal of EGO is to promote the studies on gravitational physics in Europe and to be on the frontline of the gravitational wave research.

For more information, contact Jean-Jérôme Schmidt: [email protected]