Canonical announces commercial services for its version control system, Bazaar

Set up, support and troubleshooting now available for new and existing deployments

Companies and open source projects interested in using Canonical's popular version control system now have access to a suite of commercial services – Consultancy & Conversion, Training and Support – allowing them to migrate, deploy and manage Bazaar.

Used by Ubuntu and thousands of other open source and commercial projects, Bazaar (bzr) is a version control system (vcs) that supports distributed development environments. Many existing version control systems use a centralised model, a particular challenge to globally distributed 'chase the sun' development teams, or environments where there is a frequent need to merge or branch code. Although bzr itself is open source, there is no requirement for commercial projects to make their code publicly available.

Sun Microsystems migrated the code for its MySQL database software a year ago, using bzr conversion and support services. “We wanted to use a tool which suited our distributed contributor model for MySQL, but we needed the reassurance of access to the Bazaar development team through our transition and use of the vcs,” said Jeffrey Pugh, vice president of MySQL Engineering, Sun Microsystems. “We have found bzr works really well for our model, and that the bzr support team and developers have been responsive to our requirements.”

“The increasingly distributed nature of software development has allowed Bazaar to grow in popularity,” said Martin Pool, project manager at Canonical. “Our Consultancy & Conversion, Training and Support services give new and existing customers piece of mind when setting up such a vital piece of infrastructure.”

About the Commercial Services

Bazaar Consultancy and Conversion Services

Canonical consultants and engineers are experienced in converting a wide range of version control systems to Bazaar. Following a thorough analysis, they will design and implement a customised migration process that ensures businesses and development teams can get up and running rapidly.

Training

In addition, Canonical is now offering comprehensive training in Bazaar to get staff up-to-speed quickly and transfer best practice knowledge. Both the content and delivery are tailored to meet the needs of individual teams and development environments, so developers can get the most out of the training sessions.

Support

Canonical's Global Support and Services Centre works closely with Bazaar development engineers, making it easy to access their expertise. For more complex cases, users are put in touch directly with Bazaar engineers. Companies interested in support should visit http://www.ubuntu.com/support/services.

Availability

All commercial services are now available to new and existing customers. While there are no licensing fees for Bazaar, there are standard per-day and per-developer fee options depending on the requirements of each company or project. Price quotes will be provided upon request.

For more information on Bazaar, visit: http://www.canonical.com/projects/bazaar

To make an enquiry about one of the commercial services, visit: https://forms.canonical.com/sales/

About Canonical

Canonical provides engineering, online and professional services to Ubuntu partners and customers worldwide. As the company behind the Ubuntu project, Canonical is committed to the production and support of Ubuntu – an ever-popular and fast-growing open-source operating system. It aims to ensure that Ubuntu is available to every organisation and individual on servers, desktops, laptops and netbooks.

Canonical partners with computer hardware manufacturers to certify Ubuntu, provides migration, deployment, support and training services to businesses, and offers online services direct to end users. Canonical also builds and maintains collaborative, open-source development tools to ensure that organisations and individuals can participate fully in innovations within the open-source community. For more information, please visit www.canonical.com.