Silicon Valley geeks call Sydney for tech support

Australia's IT industry received a shot in the arm this week when SiliconValley firm GitHub spurned their selection of local providers - some of the world?s biggest hosting firms - in favour of Sydney web gurus Anchor.

GitHub, a prominent tech startup well-known among the IT cognoscenti for its web- based software management system, has a client base of over 125,000 programmers world-wide using GitHub to manage projects and share coding solutions.

Andrew Rogers, the Managing Director of Anchor, has headed the Australian web- hosting firm since it started out on a shoestring nine years ago.

He now oversees a team of 21, with a growing list of high-end clients that includes IBM, Nudie, Optus, Greenpeace, the NSW Department of Planning and many others.

Anchor's reputation for innovative, high-tech and reliable systems management delivered by their Sydney data centre has already spread to the global tech heartland of Silicon Valley - and the Anchor team are thrilled.

"Getting the opportunity to design and manage the infrastructure behind what has been dubbed "facebook for programmers" has really been exciting," says Mr Rogers.

"It's very cool that we can do this from down under; we?re doing some seriously fancy technical stuff for these guys to make this work, and implementing it entirely with open source software."

While GitHub?s hardware will be physically located in the US, the Anchor team has been contracted to remotely install, monitor and manage the complex operating systems and server software.

With programmers traditionally keen on keeping vampire-friendly schedules, peak time in Silicon Valley often matches standard business hours in Australia.

Meanwhile, GitHub are keen to cement their down-under connections. "I trust the team at Anchor more than any other systems administrators I've ever worked with," says Tom Preston-Werner, GitHub's co-founder.