Solution Summary

Following the review of several key software projects in Australia, Sun Professional Services realized that each business unit was adopting different software configuration management (SCM) solutions on their respective projects. It was determined that the status quo was reducing the overall effectiveness of the Professional Services group by hindering standardization of processes, synchronization of software components and making it harder to share knowledge.

As part of resolving this dilemma, Sun Professional Services Australia decided to regulate its software development activities by selecting a single SCM tool that would be both cost effective and meet a set of basic business requirements.

After detailed analysis of all available SCM solutions, Sun selected Perforce.

Customer Profile

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- that the network is the computer -- has propelled Sun Microsystems to its position as a leading provider of hardware, software and services for establishing enterprise-wide intranets and expanding the power of the internet. Sun has established itself as a leading innovator and supplier of information technology worldwide.

Sun Microsystems Australia joined the Australian Top 500 list in 1992, just six years after the company was formed. It currently ranks number 287.

Sun Microsystems Australia's key offerings include:

• Implementation of flexible, high performance, high availability IT infrastructures
• Delivery of software architectures based on web-centric and Java technologies
• Consulting and solution services for Internet (dot-com) organizations
• Creation, delivery and support of mission-critical production environments
• Creation of robust IT infrastructures for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions

The main division responsible for software solutions in Australia is the Sun Java Center; a specialized group of consultants focusing on architectural solutions based on web-centric and Java technologies.

Development Challenge

A core set of requirements for Sun Professional Services Australia's SCM system emerged from the various projects that it engaged. These requirements were:

• Simplicity
• Parallel Engineering/Project Streamlining
• Enabling Developer Productivity
• Mature Scripting
• Strong Baselining
• Reliability
• Flexible Network Access
• Security

"Although 'real' cost was an important factor in choosing our solution," says Crawford, "it was more important that the eventual solution provided effective support for our key configuration management needs."

After an exhaustive appraisal, Sun chose Perforce. Crawford explains the applicability of Perforce for each of the key requirements below:

Simplicity
"The administrative burden of Perforce was found to be light and its usage intuitive," says Crawford. "And the documentation came in easily digestible manuals. Through Perforce's simple install procedures, we had client and server environments up and running in minutes, as opposed to hours for most of the tools we looked at."

Project Streamlining
"Experience had shown us that good branching and integration facilities could save us hours, or even days, on project delivery times," says Crawford. "Perforce branching and merging was particularly mature, enhancing visibility and fluidity in an area that has often been time consuming and clumsy."

Developer Productivity
"The Perforce client tools are simple, attractive and solid and as good as any tool on the market. Developers and managers were using the tool in minutes, and ongoing assistance was minimal," says Crawford.

Scripting
"Without strong command-line facilities, activities like build, report and test harnessing are impossible," says Crawford. "Perforce proved that its command line was exceptionally versatile and its feedback informative. It could dovetail into many scripting languages such as KSH, CSH, PERL or DOS. And, it's worth noting that, through scripting, Perforce also fitted easily into the available build tools, like MAKE, JAM and ANT."

Reliability
"In the past Sun had seen various CM repositories become unusable due to assorted spurious problems resulting from high user load, network problems or disk growth," says Crawford. "Perforce, however, has proved to be highly stable under these traditional forms of stress." Crawford adds, "If I had to choose one defining strength of Perforce then I'd say stability, in this area Perforce is truly awesome."

Baselining
"Perforce labeling, or baselining, features are both mature and surprisingly simple," says Crawford. "Additional capabilities, like easy time-based synching, were an added bonus."

Flexible Network Access
"Due to its 'lightweight' client-server transactions, Perforce proved to be effective across the various SUN regions and even proved to be effective off-site; over the Internet using a Virtual Private Network," says Crawford.

Security
To ensure change was controlled, and only available to cleared members of staff, it was necessary that the version control solution offered security granularity.

"The Perforce protection mechanism proved to be an effective way of achieving this," says Crawford. "By providing us with a solution to implementing group and individual security at all levels of the repository structure - files, directories and depot roots."

Configuration Management at Sun

Sun Professional Services recognizes that its success is highly dependent on the employment of effective CM practices. Through mature practices it can provide environmental stability, fewer outages, higher developer productivity, better client service levels and manageable product evolution.

At Sun Professional Services Australia, the path to controlling change is the establishment of a "Unified" configuration management solution; an end-to-end solution based around a model that encompasses and integrates artifact and activity management (fig 1).

"A key part of realizing the Unified CM solution was to leverage off the capabilities of Perforce," says Crawford.

Crawford goes on to list just a few of the areas where Perforce has directly helped Sun reach its CM objectives:

• Centralized component, source control
• Centralized document management
• Support for content management (including automated deployment)
• Strong version control features supporting workflow streamlining
• Support for automated and scheduled scripting (builds, tests, packaging & deployment)
• Support for tracking test defects via the Job Specifications facility
• Support for change sets via the Change List facility