[p4] Deployment files in Perforce or Maven?

[Ivey, William]

Like all "best practices" there are exceptions. Just because
a file is output from one process doesn't mean it isn't input
to another process in the future. In that case, archiving may
be the way to go.

Aside from that, we've found that Perforce can often deliver
files faster than a filesystem transfer (sometimes a LOT
faster) so even if I didn't need much real archive capability,
I might consider it just for that reason.

Depending on your downstream needs, though, you might want
to run a second server just for that. That way you could run
obliterate against old file revisions without locking your
main server. (Or play tricks with the repository like
replacing large binary revision files with small text files
as place holders - search the mailing list archives for
suggestions and tips. This kind of thing is probably more
risk than you'd like against your "real" repository.)

-Wm



> -----Original Message-----
> From: perforce-user-bounces at perforce.com
> [mailto:perforce-user-bounces at perforce.com]On Behalf Of
> vegard.setrenes at telenor.com
> Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 5:47 AM
> To: perforce-user at perforce.com
> Subject: [p4] Deployment files in Perforce or Maven?
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> In my department we use Perforce on all Java development, and 
> we have been following the "best practice" of not storing 
> anything in the depot, other than what's necessary to do a 
> build. In other words, we don't check in binary archive files 
> like EARs and JARs.
> 
> The source code for one of our systems was imported from cvs 
> one year ago. We have some deployment scripts that depend on 
> retrieving EARs and JARs from dedicated deployment 
> directories in the same old cvs. These scripts copy the 
> deployment files to multiple test or production servers.
> 
> To be able to finally get rid of the cvs base, we are looking 
> for the best way of keeping the deployment files. Should we 
> use Perforce or a web based Maven repository?
> 
> It is clear that we do not need all historic revisions of the 
> files. We are just looking for a good way to make them 
> available for the automated deployment scripts. So I guess we 
> could specify the +S modifier for a designated part of the 
> Perforce depot. But ideally there should be a way to keep 
> just the N last revisions, making it possible for the 
> deployment scripts to do rollbacks. Is this possible without 
> using the obliterate command?
> 
> How do you organize your deployment files in your organization?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> - Vegard
> 
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