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Advanced Accelerator Applications (AAA) is a spin-off of CERN (European
Organization for Nuclear Research), the world’s largest research laboratory for
particle physics. With offices and labs in Italy and France, AAA is a leader in the
production of PET (Positron Emission Tomography) radiopharmaceuticals and
develops innovative products and technologies in the Nuclear Medicine field, with
particular emphasis on cancer therapy.
AAA is, at core, a vast, ongoing research and development project, involving
teams of engineers, physicists, radiopharmacists, chemists, and even an MBA or
two. Beyond the organization’s multi-disciplinary team are some 82 international
partners with whom AAA collaborates. Fluid, ongoing communications--sharing
findings, testing hypotheses, developing prototypes, etc.--is essentially what
sustains AAA on a day-to-day basis. The extent to which they are able to
efficiently and effectively collaborate has a direct correlation on their ability to
develop and bring new products and technologies to market.
Maintaining AAA’s communications infrastructure rests largely with Davide
Domeneghini, the organization’s company-wide IT Manager. AAA operates five
sites; the main location employs 40 people, while the other four have roughly 15
staff people each. The sites are connected via a virtual private network (VPN),
across which users share their files. AAA’s engineers use Autodesk files, which
tend to be large and cumbersome. The R&D (Research & Development) team
also uses AutoDesk files, which accounts for the lion’s share of traffic across the
sites. All internal documents are in PDF format, which require digital signatures
to allow for collaboration between and among various parties.
Domeneghini needed to implement a framework that facilitated efficient, reliable
collaboration, while minimizing system resources--a difficult, if widely
experienced balancing act.
“We started to use Microsoft DFS-R with disastrous results,” said Domeneghini,
referring to Microsoft’s replication software. “I knew there had to be a better
solution out there. So I did some Internet searching and read about PeerLock, a
file locking technology from Peer Software.”
PeerLock is the only true stand-alone file locking solution on the market today
offering real-time detection of file use and immediate remote locking, ensuring
that when a user is modifying a file, no other user will be allowed to make
changes to that file on any machine that the user has chosen to lock. The newest
version, PeerLock 2.0, eliminates several critical file management barriers (i.e.,
now files can be locked on any location even if the location is on a different
domain), and facilitates more seamless collaboration by reducing file “release”
intervals (longer “release” intervals increases the risk of “version conflict,” one of
the main reasons collaborative projects are late, over-budget, or fail).
“I started with the evaluation of PeerLock in combination with Microsoft DFR for
more or less one month,” Domeneghini said. “During this period, users reported
problems in the replication of the files across the sites. It was then that I decided
to try Peer Software’s PeerSync product.”
PeerSync is Peer Software’s flagship, enterprise-class backup/synchronization
tool. It can synchronize files in real-time or on a scheduled basis, from a primary
server to multiple locations such as branch offices. PeerSync software combines
power, flexibility, and simplicity; administrators can more efficiently handle large
amounts of data and complex directories, as its enhanced event processing
optimizes performance and minimizes processing time.
“After a second evaluation using PeerLock with PeerSync--which lasted longer
than a month--I bought PeerSync,” said Domeneghini. “Why? Simple. Because it
works.”
Peer Software assigned a technician to walk Domeneghini through the setup and
configuration process.
“Peer provided excellent support and had us up and running – across all five
sites -- in pretty short order,” said Domeneghini. “The best news is that now
users don’t call me with problems with file replications. PeerSync and PeerLock
work flawlessly and completely in the background…it does exactly what it’s
supposed to do.”
Managing data in enterprise environments demands a continual balancing of
functionality/power and performance. Often, one comes at the expense of the
other. Using PeerLock with PeerSync enabled AAA to implement a true
enterprise-grade file management tool that delivers uncompromised functionality
and performance. Domeneghini now has the ability to efficiently manage larger
volumes of data, provide users with a transparent, reliable collaborative
framework by way of PeerLock, and maintain complete data availability for the
organization’s interdisciplinary teams without overburdening network resources.
PeerLock and PeerSync it’s Peer Software’s small, but not insignificant
contribution to science.
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