Joining Varnish Software…

Varnish makes this web site fly!

I wanted to make a quick announcement: From today I work for Varnish Software.

If you want to know more about the Varnish project, what it is, its history, how it can help you go green and its future please read on…

* Ok, who are you?

I am a 28 year old guy. I am father to my 6 years old daughter. I work with sales and have over the years specialized in Free and Open Source Software technology. In my spare time I am an avid Free software user and Ubuntu community member. I do also participate in other groups/communities promoting free culture/software and like to be social hanging a lot with friends and new people.

* What is Varnish?

Varnish is the fastest web accelerator in the known universe And it’s free software! But do not take my word for it, sites likes Facebook, Twitter, NYTimes, E-Bay, WordPress.com (thanks for hosting this blog) and many others use it on a daily basis. If Varnish would have been around all along and people used it all over the web the term slashdoted would not have existed (yes, Slashdot uses Varnish too!)

* How did the Varnish project start?

Varnish was an idea that ocurred to Anders Berg in 2005. He was then System Administrator at VG Multimedia (Online branch of Norways biggest newspaper Verdens Gang) and figured out that there had to be an effective way to deliver snappier web pages using the unleashed technology under the hood of today’s operative systems.

So a team at Linpro (acquired by Redpill in 2008) and Poul Henning Kamp, of FreeBSD and bikeshade coloured fame, started hacking on Varnish.

Some months later @ VG Multimedia 12 squid servers hit the dust and were replaced by 1 server running Varnish. One server handling all requests (45 Million a week) faster than before and with a noticeable carbon footprint reduction.

In 2006 Varnish was released as open source software (BSD) with Linpro offering professional services, support and heading the development of new features.

* What does Varnish do?

Taking advantages of proper memory and hardware management in modern operative systems (Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris) Varnish lets you forget about the backend slowness: databases, CMS, Portal software, middleware. This translates in Application Developers and Designers doing their job: making great content, beautiful layout and more features for your websites.

Varnish can be seen as a layer in front of your present web infrastructure which optimizes the delivery of your content. Images speak louder than words:

Aller Internet went from 14 Squid down to 2 Varnish servers

* Yes, but how does Varnish do that?

Varnish is written in C, with modern architecture in mind, designed and made to be fast. If you want details please see this page.

* What about this Varnish Software company you are now joining?

Varnish Software is a software company, a Redpill Linpro spin-off.

What we want is to accelerate the development of the Varnish project. We want to address the global demand for Varnish services, support and additional software and to do so we need to keep focus on the product.

The company is formed by the same people that worked with Varnish @ Redpill Linpro and we will continue to deliver Varnish professional services to its users worldwide.

* Why do you blog about this?

Because I am all excited about joining such a talented team. The way I see it this is the most exciting Norwegian IT tale of the decade. So wish us luck!

Thanks for reading!

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~ by huayra on 2010 May 8.