What is your experience with Clearcase Multiserver?

Question

We are considering using ClearCase Multisite to create an offshore development team. Another option is the ClearCase Remote Client, which uses a local (onshore) ClearCase installation. Has anyone had experience using Multisite? Is synchronization and land management issues the ability to use a fat client?

Answer 1

That's a good question. I believe it's worth using multisites as long as you can understand the skill of the elements. If an element is mastered on site A, you cannot edit it on site B until you transfer the skill. Therefore, if each site works with the same code fragments, then multi-site will have more problems than it is worth if coverage does not overlap, and multi-level is a good challenge. Clearcase is very online chat, and keeping as many locations as possible is a good idea.

Answer 2

I agree with the incentives. In fact, if you don't have massive concurrent development in the same set of files, a multisite application is pretty hard to configure and maintain ...

And if the coverage does not intersect ... in fact, we switched to CRC (but we are here with CC7.0.1 here, CRC in 6.0 was not advanced enough). This means that you have a good connection, allowing your user to connect to a web server representing CRC, and which will access your vobs for them.
Your remote clients will either use the "bold" client (the Eclipse RCP ClearCase client talking to your CRC) or the web interface to configure their snapshots.

Another point that pushed us away from Multisite is the licensing system: you cannot convert a wob to a “tiered one” without using (more expensive) multisite licenses, even for your local users ...
Therefore, if you want to use only multi-site licenses for your remote users, you need to isolate your data in a multi-user vob and then replicate this data to a regular vob!

In general, I believe that Multisite is not the only answer to the development team of offshore companies.
BUT, that, as said, one strong power of a multisite mechanism is its ability to synchronize itself from a delta coming from different sources:

• regular packet reception
• files
• even a CD burned with the last delta can do it!

This means that if your connection is not always with a remote site, Multisite may be a valid option.

Answer 3

One of the very big differences between Multisite and CCRC is that you can only use snapshots (but actually called webviews) with CCRC, while Multisite can take both snapshots and dynamic views.

As noted in a previous post, there are also cash and administrative expenses.

Without additional information about the size of the offshore team, what they are likely to develop, how long you are going to use the solution, the size of the business, the experience of administration and the time of your ClearCase employee. Well, it would be difficult to answer that for sure.

Answer 4

MultiSite is a great product and really allows remote sites in a way that CCRC does not. It also serves as a backup for your VOB. There are many things to consider, but don't let the complexity of MultiSite turn you off ... I suggest you take a look at CM / InSync to automate MultiSite in setting up your speakerphone.

The CCRC client is fine compared to natural dynamic views. It really depends on your requirements and needs.

d.