( ESNUG 345 Item 5 ) ---------------------------------------------- [3/1/00]
Subject: ( ESNUG 342 #3 ) Synchronicity's DesignSync -- A True Nightmare
> This is a survey and question about RCS. I would like to know in the
> Verilog world who's using RCS revision control software. I have used it
> and found it quite useful to manage projects particularly when it was
> being used with a GUI (i.e. Renoir, CS-RCS etc). I was wondering if
> others have had the same experience and what company you're with (i.e.
> no vendors saying how much we need it). Thank you for your help.
>
> - Joshua Schwartz
> Redux Communications Israel
From: [ Synchronicity Is Marketing Hype ]
John,
Please keep me anonymous on this one.
For years (15+) the most successful tool I've used in CVS. It's free,
handles multiple files simultaneously, extremely customizable, has
options for distributed secure Internet use, works on many platforms
(including Windows NT, Linux and even Mac) and has commercial support
if you want it. There are even multiple platform GUI's available if
you need it. CVS is built on top of RCS or SCCS (it's your choice --
most choose RCS).
Then there is DesignSync by Synchronicity designed for EDA... Don't
do it! It's marketing hype. It has a fancy GUI, but lacks sufficient
maturity. There are a ton of things it does not do well at all (e.g.
handling branch merges, reporting updates, portability of shadows).
With their network architecture, the tool is very slow (compared with
CVS) even with encryption turned off. Worst of all, there are nasty
bugs that don't seem to get fixed very fast. They designed the
product with Windows NT and management (the buyers) in mind. There is
a cool link for project tracking. Too bad the tool is hard to install
and users seem to universally be confused by their training and
terminology. Synchronicity touts their TCL interface, but it's just a
cover for the poor job they've done. Eventually Synchronicity may get
to the same level as CVS, but why wait? Why pay for inferiority and
pain when CVS works and is available free? Commercial support is
available if you don't have the support staff.
- [ Synchronicity Is Marketing Hype ]
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From: "Tommy Kelly" <tommyk@dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Jon,
I've used RCS, CVS and ClearCase. RCS provides only revision control,
which is only one component of Configuration Management. It is simply not
sufficient for management of a large chip with more than a couple of
engineers. That's why most RCS users will find themselves adding
make/sh/perl-type script support around about RCS. Been there, done that,
bought ClearCase.
In my experience, some of the major components of config. management (i.e.
manging the complex configuration of your design database, as it grows and
changes throughout its life) -- and these apply to HDL-based chip design as
much as to s/w design -- are:
a. Version control (tracking changes to files and directories)
b. Build management (bolting all those files together)
c. Workspace management (allowing parallel, concurrent development)
d. Process control (enforcing design policy - e.g. auto-running a code
lint before allowing a code change to be checked in)
e. Release management (baselining and labelling a snapshot of the design)
f. Bug tracking (bugs?, what bugs!?)
g. Remote working support (doing all of the above from different
geographical locations)
RCS provides only a., and even there it does it only for files and not for
directories. CVS gives a., including some directory versioning, c., d.,
and e. ClearCase does a-e and does them all in generally more powerful
ways than CVS. It has a Very Cool approach to b. in that it provides a
version of unix "make" which does implicit dependency detection.
ClearCase's d. (process control) is more powerful than that of CVS, but
essentially both provide for pre and post operation trigger scripts.
None of the three provide f., but I think there's a ClearCase DDTS
integration. And you can sit gnats or something similar next to RCS, SCCS,
CVS or whatever.
CVS can do g., via anonymous ftp or ssh. ClearCase has a bolt-on called
MultiSite which does the same thing.
ClearCase's major drawback is its admin overhead. If you are lucky enough
to have a *full-time* UNIX administrator/EDA engineer, then you may get
away with ClearCase. If your design is big enough you should probably
consider having a full time Configuration Manager in addition to your
SysAdmin. Otherwise, consider CVS, PRCS or similar. RCS just won't cut it
for most designs.
Final point: none of these tools is a silver bullet. Successful CM,
particularly in the heterogeneous world that is VLSI design, is as much a
social thing as a technical one. These tools don't cause the design
complexity, nor do they themselves solve it. The complexity is inherent in
big design, and good professional practice -- in coding styles, data
structuring, change management -- is what is ultimately required.
ClearCase, etc. merely provide the mechanisms for implementing that
practice. I'd give yourself at least a year, and one or two projects
*after* installing your tool of choice before you'll feel that you're
beginning to crack this problem.
- Tommy Kelly Somewhere, England
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
From: [ We Got Burned, Too ]
Hi, John,
Please keep me anonymous on this one!
We're using ClearCase for ASIC design & it works great. We used DesignSync
from Synchronicity on one project and it was a disaster. DesignSync is like
an early beta version of RCS that they charge a lot of money for! We had
problems with corrupted databases and lost files. In ClearCase we see
nothing like this. It just works in the background as a good revison
control system should do. In the past we have used RCS on many projects but
it started to consume a lot of the designers time to manage the system and
create scripts so we started to look around for alternatives. After the
DesignSync mistake we have settled on ClearCase, which is also the system
our software designers are using.
- [ We Got Burned, Too ]
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
From: Ray Salemi <rays@exemplar.com>
Hi John,
Clearcase is an extremely powerful configuration managment system. It
manages remote sites well and it is just about fool-proof in that you cannot
trick it by changing permissions, etc.
It is tough to install and bring up as your configuration tool. It requires
quite a bit of planning and commitment to move to it. However, once you've
made the transition there is no better tool for managing large designs.
We chose Clearcase for two reasons:
1. We had a bi-coastal design project and had to share design files.
2. We had very large design directories. So each time someone wanted to
create a new workspace they had to copy several hundred megabytes of
data. This ate a lot of local disk space and it took several hours
to create the new workspace.
Clearcase lets you create a new workspace in seconds. It doesn't copy the
files to your machine until you check them out. If you don't check them
out, you see the files as a remote file system mounted on your machine. You
can switch between different releases of your chip with one command without
having to re-copy the design files.
You get this functionality at a price. Clearcase uses a ton of network
bandwidth, and it can push the compute power of workstations. There is a
significant learning curve. (During the learning curve users will
accidently get in a state where it appears they have deleted all their
files. This is stressful for the users though sometimes amusing to the
support staff.)
Clearcase is also tricky to integrate with LSF for server farms.
Overall, if you've got a large ASIC project clearcase can handle it. It's
the most powerful tool on the market and I think it was worth the learning
curve.
- Ray Salemi
Exemplar Logic
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