[p4] cdsp4 vs Synchronicity - Simon De Groot - com.perforce.perforce-user

13 messages in com.perforce.perforce-user[p4] cdsp4 vs Synchronicity

From	Sent On	Attachments
Eric D. Blom	31 Jul 2003 09:38
Cris Vulpe	31 Jul 2003 16:58
Simon De Groot	01 Aug 2003 00:50
Eric D. Blom	01 Aug 2003 09:34
Eric D. Blom	01 Aug 2003 09:38
Simon De Groot	04 Aug 2003 00:08
Eric D. Blom	04 Aug 2003 08:20
Simon De Groot	04 Aug 2003 23:59
Eric D. Blom	05 Aug 2003 08:03
Cris Vulpe	14 Nov 2003 00:41
Tony Sweeney	14 Nov 2003 05:57
Bob Cook	14 Nov 2003 07:32
Wright, Richard	14 Nov 2003 09:15

Subject:	[p4] cdsp4 vs Synchronicity
From:	Simon De Groot (Simo...@nsc.com)
Date:	08/04/2003 11:59:27 PM
List:	com.perforce.perforce-user

Hi Eric, thanks for the info.

I'm not sure if I understand correctly though. Being able to revision symlinks (in addition to text/binary datatypes) enables you to link to another place on the filesystem. But for the link to point to a cache, maintained by the DDM, and for the link to be managed by the DDM in a sense that it will point to the object in cache that you would otherwise have synced in your workspace, is something else.

Revisioning symlinks would in my opinion be useful e.g. in case you point to some design packages directory or toolset.

I'm not sure if this relates to the cache filesharing through links. But I probably failed to see the whole picture, or maybe we're fishing for IC Manage info a bit too much :).

Regards, Simon.

"Eric D. Blom" <ebx at cypress.com> Sent by: perforce-user-admin at perforce.com 08/04/03 05:21 PM

To: "Simon De Groot" <Simon.de.Groot at nsc.com> cc: perforce-user at perforce.com Subject: Re: [p4] cdsp4 vs Synchronicity

Thanks for your input Simon. I thought you, and others, might be interested in Shiv Sikand's response to my question. His answer describes the capabilities of his new companies tool, IC Manage.

Using revisioned symlinks, we support linking workareas or full workarea copies or anywhere in between. This is a very powerful approach to let you manage your disk space requirements effectively as well as control your configurations in a repeatable fashion.

Cheers, Eric

Simon De Groot wrote:

Hi Eric,

Indeed the link model does those two things, but note that in addition, workspace population and synchronization is much faster. As for the immediate updates: true. Designers should be well aware of the fact that

if they work with links to mirror, objects that they haven't checked out

will be updated immediately as soon as some other designer checks in a new version. To prevent that, he can populate his workspace with actual copies of the version he wants.

I do agree that this is prune to confusion, and requires awareness of designers. But you can always turn it off, and choose the use of the cache instead of a mirror. In this case you'll link to a version in the cache, which will not change. In other words, the cache is a 'flattened'

representation of an otherwise two dimensional database (files and versions).

Greets,

Simon de Groot CAD Engineer National Semiconductor B.V., Bruistensingel 280, NL-5232 AD 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands Tel. +31 73 6408352, Fax +31 73 6408823 mailto:Simon.de.Groot at nsc.com, Internet: http://www.national.com

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"Eric D. Blom" <ebx at cypress.com> Sent by: perforce-user-admin at perforce.com

08/01/03 06:34 PM

To: "Simon De Groot" <Simon.de.Groot at nsc.com> cc: perforce-user at perforce.com Subject: Re: [p4] cdsp4 vs Synchronicity

Simon De Groot wrote:

A few quick comments on this issue, since we're using both Synchronicity (design data) and Perforce (documentation, software, so no cdsp4 atm)

here:

Storage capacity:

I'm not sure about the storage efficiency server-side, one compared to the other. However I would like to note that if x designers are working on the same dataset, they will all require to sync all files into their workspace. Synchronicity's DesignSync is able to make use of Unix/Linux's symbolic links in combination with the cache. This way, actual files will only be in workspace if they're checked out (or opened for edit in P4 terms). This saves a considerable amount of storage capacity.

I'm struggling to understand the benefits of the link model other than a reduction in disk space and work space update time. The disadvantage I see is that an engineer's work space can change at any time. That seems like a huge disadvantage and I'm wondering how it works in practice. I can't imagine working on a problem, say a verification task, while the source for my netlist is changing out from under me.