Helix VCS enables Trend Micro to collaborate between Git and Perforce

About Trend Micro

• Tokyo, Japan-based software firm with more than 25 years of security expertise
• Solutions protect end users on any device, optimize security for the modern data center, and secure networks against breaches from targeted attacks
• Market leader in server security, cloud security and small business content security solutions that identify new threats faster, detect breaches better, and protect data in physical, virtual, and cloud environments
• Approximately 2,000 developers based in the U.S., Canada, China, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines

Core Pain Points

Trend Micro’s geographically dispersed software developers needed one version management solution that could bring all the global teams together onto a single platform, as well as offer developers the option to use Git as part of their workflows.

• Over time, some developers preferred using Git for their workflows, resulting in completely disjoint code repositories to sprout throughout the enterprise
• Code quality and automation tools built by Trend Micro Engineering Tools and Services (ETS) team did not support Git, resulting in Git users not complying with corporate coding policies
• Lack of standardization created ongoing code quality, productivity and administrative overheads for Trend Micro

“Perforce’s versioning engine, P4D, is the corporate standard at Trend Micro. We needed a way to connect our Git users to rest of the company because all of our services like code-scanning, build services, testing, etc., are based on Perforce.”
- Brenda Li, Perforce Administrator and SCM Engineer, Trend Micro

Why Perforce?

Before selecting Perforce, Trend Micro had found it difficult to support a global environment. Perforce’s enterprise-ready versioning platform was the clear choice because:

• Perforce comes with built-in support for replication and caching for fast geographically distributed sites
• With Git Fusion, users can work in Git or Perforce or both, while the organization maintains a single repository
• Installation and administration was easy (it took less than three hours)
• Integration with the rest of Trend Micro’s environment and existing ETS services was straightforward

“Our users say Git Fusion is a great tool, and the user experience is better than with pure Git,” noted Jun Wang, Project Manager, Engineering Tools and Services at Trend Micro. “Performance is better, there are additional tools that Git alone doesn’t offer, and the support we get from Perforce is excellent.”

Perforce in Action

“Git Fusion was exactly the tool we were looking for to satisfy the needs of developers as well as the organization,” Li explains.

• Multiple sites are now supported by a single versioning platform
• All code flows into a single shared code base that can be accessed by all authorized users
• Perforce has reduced the number of complaints from Git users, because they can share code with Perforce users without additional steps
• Software release managers can assemble projects using familiar engineering processes, and Git developers can continue to use their preferred tools
• Both Git and P4 users can leverage ETS’s code quality tools connected to the main repository and ensure compliance with corporate coding policies

Business Impact

Trend Micro now has a stable and reliable versioning engine used across the entire company. The company has seen several productivity gains from their use of Perforce:

• Reduced cost of overall version management ownership and administration
• Code sharing and reuse between Git and Perforce users has increased productivity
• Git users now comply with corporate policies on code quality
• Teams can easily reorganize repositories or create new repositories with a different structure
• Support is easier, due to having a single vendor and eliminating the need for multiple vendors to resolve issues
• The administration team can enforce uniform access control policies, which improves enterprise security

“We promote best practices for continuous delivery including automatic builds, code analysis, continuous integration, test automation, and automated deployment. This has helped Trend Micro shorten release cycles and speed up time-to-market,” said Wang.