GBIF users in some parts of the world have been asking for faster access to the GBIF data portal. Also, redundancy in case of network outages has also been desirable. Therefore, a project was started to establish mirror sites for the GBIF data portal.

Three mirror sites are planned in the first phase of the project (see the concerned article). The first mirror site has now been established in Berlin, Germany. If all goes well with this first site, other sites in Daejon, Korea, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA, will be established in the coming months.

Users of www.gbif.net are now being redirected automatically to the closest or most available mirror site, such as www.europe.gbif.net.

Technically, mirroring happens through MySQL replication in real time. A redirection algorithm that runs on all the mirror sites finds the mirror site best suited for the user. The built-in capabilities of the web browsers are also used. The only drawback of this algorthim is that the users will see in their browser location the mirror being used, and bookmarking such a regional mirror may bypass the redirection mechanism.

Comments to GBIF Webmaster (link at the bottom of the page) will be appreciated.