PARK CITY, UTAH (Oct. 10, 2007) – After mooching off the open source world for 10 years and making millions, Backcountry.com finally threw the Postgres community a bone in the form of a database synching tool curiously called Bucardo.

Bucardo was quietly released just a week (or so) ago at http://bucardo.org.

Designed and named (apparently after an extinct, wiry mountain goat) specifically for Backcountry.com by End Point Corporation, Bucardo allows seamless real-time synching of multiple databases. If millions of users are hitting the same database at once, it slows down the process. Because Bucardo synchs both multi-master and master-slave databases, Postgres users can now spread hits and optimize traffic and bandwidth. Basically this means smooth, easy surfing with minimal latency. It’s all about efficiency and speed.

When asked why this is remotely interesting, End Point developer Greg Sabino Mullane said, “I’ll be honest with you: this isn’t earth shattering. Oracle can do it, and you can kind of do it with MySQL. But while there are plenty of Postgres replication systems out there, this is the first that lets you synch multi-masters in real time. So yeah, when you look specifically at Postgres, this is a pretty big deal.”

“Ok, so Bucardo is more like plug-in air fresheners than sliced bread,” said John Bresee, president of Backcounty.com. “It’s not for everyone, but it’s revolutionary for people who are really into this stuff.”

Backcountry.com has been battle-testing Bucardo in live production for nine months. Bucardo has already exceeded the specialty retailer’s expectations, seamlessly shepherding it through its highest traffic day yet of more than 2.35 million page views. That’s approximately 1,600 page views per minute, all managed by Bucardo. Good news since Backcountry.com anticipates traffic levels to surge to near three million page views per day this holiday season.

It is uncommon for a major online retailer to release its internal tools to open source, but as Bresee put it, “The open source community has basically been our sugar mama for years. We’re just stoked to give something back.”

About Backcountry.com
Backcountry.com is an online retailer of performance outdoor adventure gear and apparel. The e-commerce site carries more than 400 brands in various categories, including backpacking, camping, hiking, climbing, trail running, paddling, skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing and adventure travel. Backcountry.com also operates BackcountryOutlet.com, SteepandCheap.com, Dogfunk.com, Tramdock.com, and WhiskeyMilitia.com.