Perforce is a popular scalable Version Control system/ Software Configuration Management (SCM) tool used in development lifecycle for securely maintaining frequent changes to the code files, provide audit trails to changes, support parallel development and code reuse. Developers use Perforce to maintain current and historical versions of files, such as code files, web pages, and documents. Perforce maintains a centralized repository for files and allows access to the repository across networks, thereby fostering collaboration and speeding up project progress.
But for the changes and updates committed to the files in Perforce repository, distributed team of developers, QA/testers, support using different tools needs to be automatically updated with the information about the changes done. Kovair Perforce Integration Adapter connects Perforce with IDEs and tools from other domains, such as Requirement Management, Test Management, Change Management, and Defect Management for automatic exchange of information.
Features & Benefits
- Fosters collaboration among dispersed development teams. Using any GIT client developers can work on the same file and updates are merged on the perforce repository.
- Allows you to track code units corresponding to other artifacts, such as defects and change requests recorded in other integrated tools.
- Allows you to access specific versions or latest version of code snippets in Perforce from other development tools.
- Allows you to access changeset and file version information from other tools.
- Allows you to collaborate with team members for document updates and handoffs.
- Ensures cross-tool visibility, requirement traceability, and process automation
- Accessibility to Perforce Changesets and File information from other integrated tools
- Accessibility to standard Perforce features like truly atomic commit, branching, and tagging.
- Easy to link changesets to any artifact in the integrated scenario using Kovair’s centralized repository for all artifacts.
- Easy to configure and customize using web based codeless configuration screens.
- Conflict detection and mediation
Kovair Support for Perforce Integration
Kovair Perforce Integration Adapter’ exposes Perforce artifacts File, ChangeList, File Version, Job, and Label (as traceable items) in the integrated ALM scenario.
Kovair provides a vendor-neutral ALM platform called Kovair Omnibus Integration Platform to which you can connect your Perforce instance using Kovair Perforce Integration Adapter. This integration makes information about Perforce files and changesets accessible from any tool connected to Kovair Omnibus Integration Platform. Perforce changesets can be linked to any Requirement or Defect item in any integrated tool like DOORS or JIRA to establish traceability. Perforce Files are not duplicated in the integrated tools; instead, file information (Metadata) is made available to the other tools. File content/difference can also be made available on demand through a federated architecture to certain ALM tools and Kovair plug-ins for IDEs like Eclipse and Visual Studio.
The adapter component is Kovair Perforce Adapter which is a web service.
Kovair Omnibus currently supports Perforce Version 2008.2, 2010.2, 2013, 2014.1.
Fig: Kovair Perforce Integration
Perforce Integration Adapter offers the followings:
Source Code Control
Throughout the lifecycle of an application, the source code files keep changing; existing files are modified, new files are created, and old files are deleted. As a result, keeping track of every change and preventing one user from accidentally overwriting the changes made by another becomes a necessity. Perforce has the built-in source code control capability to allow multiple developers to work on the same project/ project files at the same time. When Perforce is integrated into the ALM eco-system by means of Kovair Perforce Integration Adapter, Perforce events like changeset creation are propagated to other tools providing visibility to the specific files and file versions that are being worked upon for a particular requirement, change request or defect. As a result, different stakeholders can get visibility into Perforce changes without having to navigate away from their preferred tool environment.
Change & Defect Management
Implementing change requests and fixing defects always require addition of code files or modifications in existing code files that are stored in source code control tools, such as Perforce. Each such addition or modification generates a changeset with certain details on the nature of changes. By virtue of Perforce integration using the Kovair Perforce Integration Adapter, you can get access to the changeset information and associate the changesets to the corresponding change request or defect in another tool.
Version Control
Version control implies keeping track of which changes were made, who made them, when they were made, and why. Also, it involves grouping versioned files for a release, maintaining multiple releases that are still being widely used and merging files from different releases. Therefore, it is imperative to keep multiple versions of the source code and other necessary files well within the reach of the developers. Perforce integration addresses this requirement and allows developers to access information about specific versions of code files from their development tools.
Traceability
In order to ensure that the final product is in accordance with the requirements specified by the customers during the inception of a project, it is vital to bring in traceability at every stage of the application development life cycle. By integrating Perforce with other tools in the ALM system, you can ensure that all the changes in any of the files can be traced to its originating cause – be it a fix for a defect or a change request implementation.
Kovair – Perforce Integration
As shown in the figure above, you can integrate Perforce with Kovair, Eclipse/ Visual Studio IDE and Hudson/ Jenkins so that as developers check in code files from their respective IDE(s) to Perforce SCM tool repository, Kovair through automated workflow triggers build for those files in build tool like Hudson or Jenkins. Changesets corresponding to the source code files in Perforce are replicated in Kovair and linked with the corresponding requirements, change requests or defects to achieve traceability.