Ravenbrook / Projects / Perforce Defect Tracking Integration / Project Documents

Perforce Defect Tracking Integration Project

Platform Survey for Perforce Defect Tracking Integration

Richard Brooksby, Ravenbrook Limited, 2000-06-20

1. Introduction

This document describes the result of a survey of Perforce customers asking them which defect tracking system their company uses and which platforms their Perforce servers, defect tracking systems and defect tracking databases run on.

The purpose of this document is to generate requirements for platforms supported by the integration.

The intended readership of this document is anyone working on the project.

This document is not confidential.

2. Survey Questions

  1. What platform do you run the Perforce server on? (By "platform" I mean operating system, version if you know it, and anything special about your setup. For example, "Windows NT server 4.0" or "RedHat Linux (Alpha processor)".)
  2. What platform(s) do you run Perforce clients on?
  3. What defect tracking system do you use?
  4. What platform do you run the defect tracking server on?
  5. What platform(s) do you run the defect tracking clients on?
  6. What relational database do you use to store the defect tracking's data? (For example, "Oracle 8i release 2" or "Microsoft SQL Server 7.0".)
  7. What platform does the database server run on?
  8. How many server hosts do you have? (Do you have separate hosts for the Perforce server, the defect tracking server and the database server, or do some of them share a host?)

3. Survey Results

Customer P4S platforms P4C platforms DTS DTS platforms DTC platforms DTDB DTDB platform Hosts Source
Baltimore Windows NT/x86, Red Hat Linux/x86, Solaris/SPARC Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows 98, OS/390, Solaris, HP-UX TeamTrack, homebrew Windows NT Windows MS Access not answered 5 Perforce servers, 3-4 TeamTrack servers Paul Goffin, 2000-06-09 08:42:38 +0100
Citrix Windows NT 4.0 Server Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows 98, Solaris/x86, Solaris/SPARC, Linux, Macintosh, HP-UX, Compaq Tru64, Irix, SCO, SunOS, and more homebrew Windows NT Windows NT Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Windows NT All machines are separate and connected using Citrix proprietary technology to access NT based defect tracking clients. David Tock, 2000-06-09 09:38:13 +0100
Cimatron Windows NT Server 4.0 SP 5 Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP 5 Remedy ARS 4.0.2 Windows NT Server 4.0 SP 5 Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP 5 Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 SP 5 Windows NT Server 4.0 SP 5 Two perforce servers. Remedy software runs on same host as DTDB for performane reasons. Yarif Sheizaf, 2000-06-09 17:54:39 +0200
Health Hero Network Linux/x86 Macintosh, Mac OS X Server, Mac OS X, Windows NT, FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris TeamTrack Windows NT? Same as P4C platforms using web interface Microsoft SQL Server? Windows NT? not answered Richard Kiss, 2000-06-14 12:08:56 -0700
Palm Solaris Macintosh, Windows NT 4, Windows 2000, Linux/x86, Solaris AIM Solaris Same as P4C platforms using web interface Oracle Solaris Perforce separate from AIM and Oracle, which are together. Jeff Parrish, 2000-06-10 01:53:41 +0200
SciTech Software Linux Mandrake 7.1 unknown Custom, based on Bugzilla 2.10 Linux Mandrake 7.1 unknown MySQL Linux Mandrake 7.1 DTS and Perforce on same server Kendall Bennett, 2000-07-20 14:57:11 -0800
Symantec Windows NT Windows 98, Windows NT, Linux, Solaris, AIX, OS/390 homebrew Solaris Windows Oracle Solaris DTDB seperate from P4S Russel Jackson, 2000-06-08 13:30:48 -0700
Symantec Windows NT Server 4.0 Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Macintosh, OS/2, Linux, Solaris homebrew Windows NT 4.0 Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Macintosh Oracle not answered Single defect tracking server on its own host. Multiple Perforce servers. None share a host. Michael Pye, 2000-06-12 13:32:14 -0700
WRQ Windows NT 4.0, HP-UX 10 Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Macintosh, Linux, Solaris Scopus, Soffront TRACK not answered Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000 Scopus on Sybase, TRACK on Microsoft SQL Server, TRACK on Oracle not answered Two Perforce servers on separate hosts. Scopus and TRACK on separate hosts. Ed Mack, 2000-06-13 13:27:20 -0700

4. Survey Analysis

The main result seems to be that multiple Perforce servers are commonplace. We must therefore add a new requirement that the integration should cope with multiple Perforce servers. This means that the integration should cope with organizations where a defect tracking system track defects for projects whose configurations are managed on multiple Perforce servers. (Added as requirement 96.)

Multiple defect tracking systems are also found in some organization. We must therefore add a requirement that the integration may cope with multiple defect tracking systems. This means that the integration should cope with organizations where a Perforce server manages configurations for projects whose defects are tracked on multiple defect tracking systems. (Added as requirement 97.)

One organization has multiple Perforce servers and multiple defect tracking systems. We must therefore add a requirement that the integration might cope with organizations that have a many-to-many relationship between their Perforce servers and defect tracking systems. (It seems likely that if both the above requirements are met, then this requirement will be met too, but it is probably not worth spending further effort meeting it.) (Added as requirement 98.)

We must add requirements for server platforms supported by the integration. The mode platform for all three servers (Perforce, defect tracking system, database) is Windows NT (Windows NT is also the most popular server platform among Perforce clients generally). We must therefore add requirements that the integration must support those servers running on Windows NT. Other server platforms mentioned in the survey are Solaris and Linux. The integration should support Solaris and may support Linux. (Added as requirements requirement 99, requirement 100 and requirement 101.)

We must add a requirement for the databases supported by the integration. The two most popular databases are Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle, so the integration should support those. The other databases mentioned in the survey are Microsoft Access and Sybase. The integration may support these. (Added as requirement 102.)

5. Conclusions

The platform survey was successful in generating requirements for platforms supported by the integration.

A. References

[GDR 2000-05-24] "Project requirements"; Gareth Rees; Ravenbrook Limited; 2000-05-24.

B. Document History

2000-06-20 RB Tabulated results of e-mail survey results collected by GDR. Added empty analysis and conclusions sections.
2000-07-04 GDR Wrote introduction and conclusion. Added analysis and references to new requirements.
2000-07-26 GDR Added SciTech Software.

Copyright © 2000 Ravenbrook Limited. This document is provided "as is", without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this document. You may make and distribute verbatim copies of this document provided that you do not charge a fee for this document or for its distribution.

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Ravenbrook / Projects / Perforce Defect Tracking Integration / Project Documents