The software package ARB and the SILVA rRNA databases
More than 10,000 estimated users worldwide of the freely available ARB software package ask for a professional infrastructure to cope with their numerous requests and various interests. In 2005, Ribocon has taken over this responsibility in agreement and cooperation with the ARB development team at the TU Munich.
These ARB-related Services & Solutions are currently offered by Ribocon:
Automatic Linux plus ARB Installation DVD 3.0
Preconfigured Hardware (Workstations, Server)
The Ribocon team has a strong background in microbial diversity analysis, phylogenetic reconstruction and probe design, and we are highly experienced with the usage of ARB, also on the system level. We actively participate in the development and maintenance of the free ARB software and we are part of the SILVA rRNA database project.
In case of further requirements please contact 
arb(at)ribocon.com
Please also have a look at our rDNA Sequence Analysis Services including in-depth phylogenetic analysis.
What is ARB/SILVA?
ARB (latin, "arbor" = tree) is a free, fully-integrated package of cooperating software tools for the classification and phylogenetic analysis of any kind of sequence data, as well as for the design of high-quality molecular probes.
ARB is under continuous development at the TU-Munich in the group of Dr. Wolfgang Ludwig (
www.arb-home.de) since nearly 15 years.
With more than 1,700 citations (as of July 2010) since its publication in NAR in 2004 ( Nuc. Acids Res. 2004; Vol. 32, No. 4, p.1363-1371), ARB represents a "blockbuster" among the scientific software tools.
SILVA (latin, = forest) represent the official ribosomal RNA databases of the ARB project since January 2007.
SILVA ( www.arb-silva.de) was initiated by the group of Prof. Dr. Frank Oliver Glöckner at the MPI-Bremen in cooperation with Ribocon and published in late 2007 ( Nuc. Acids Res. 2007; Vol. 35, No. 21, p. 7188-7196).