The document presents an overview of Perforce's 2014 product updates, highlighting server optimizations, new features for end users, and collaboration enhancements with Swarm. Key server improvements include lockless reads, federated architecture for distributed teams, and significant performance gains from clustering and synchronization optimizations. Among user-focused updates, new functionalities in the P4V interface and the introduction of streams for better component management are emphasized.

1. Year in Review:
Perforce 2014 Product Updates
Charles McLouth
Director of Solutions Engineering

2. Presented By:
Charlie McLouth
Director of Solutions Engineering
Charlie has over 15 years of
experience with technologies such
as RDBMS, web applications, back
office applications, and web services.
He has held positions ranging from
Developer to Product Manager
before joining Perforce 8 years ago.

3. Agenda
• Server Optimizations
• Features for End Users
• Collaboration Features with Swarm

4. SERVER
OPTIMIZATIONS

5. Server Performance and Scalability
• Concurrency Optimizations – aka Lockless
Reads
• Federated Architecture for Distributed Teams
• Clustering for Horizontal Scalability
• Clustering for High Availability
• Sync Performance
SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS

6. Concurrency – aka Lockless Reads
SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS
Writer
Reader
Database
p4 submit
Lockless Reads
Writer does not block
Reader
p4 changes
✗

7. VMware
Before After
Total Commands 3,518,462 3,211,786
Total write-wait-time 58,468s
Total read-wait-time 1,033,957s
SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS
VMware with 5,000 users
(24 hour period)
3,430s
992s 1000X
17X

8. VMware – Command Delays
Commands affected, before Lockless
Commands affected, after Lockless
SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS
1,749
0
Commands affected by delays
3,000
2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
500
0
Seconds of
delay
1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256

9. Federated Architecture for Distributed Teams
• Commit/Edge modes for server
• Local metadata with edge
services
• Submits propagated to commit
service
• Other commands execute locally
Commit
Edge Edge
SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS

10. Performance Gains with Federation
56.6
8.7
61
9.8
0.9 0.7 1.8 0.2
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Sync Revert Integrate Edit
Direct Edge
Perforce Lab Benchmarks SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS

11. Clustering for Horizontal Scalability
• Distribute workload to multiple nodes
• Better performance and experience for all users
From This…
Activity
100%
P4D
To This…
User Activity System Activity User Activity User Activity
2%
Commit
34% 33% 33%
Workspace
Server
Workspace
Server
Workspace
Server
SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS

12. Horizontal Scalability Results
Commit
WS WS WS WS
WS WS WS WS
• 100,000 simulated developers
• 742 commands/sec
• 8 node cluster
SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS

13. Clustering – Failover
Router
Depot
Master
P4D P4D
SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS
NAS
P4D
Depot
Master
Standby
LAN

14. Sync Performance
• Sync Performance Increased
– Network window size optimization
– Transfer multiple times at a time – aka Parallel Sync
SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS

15. Network Window Size Optimization
SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS

16. Network Window Size Optimization
SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS

17. Parallel Sync
SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS

18. Sync Performance Results
• Network window size optimization
– 1/16th the amount of network round trips
• Parallel Sync
– 1/4th the amount of time
• Results of both
– Syncs up to 20 times faster
SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS

19. LDAP For User Authentication
• Perforce provides Authentication Trigger entry points for lookup into
third party user database (including LDAP)
• auth_check trigger works well, but ...
– Needs to be installed separately
– No standard (Python, Perl, C++ implementations)
– One more headache for administrators
• Most common request on P4Ideax:
– Perforce should provide built-in LDAP integration
SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS

20. Native LDAP support
LDAP
SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS
p4 login
user-login
client-Prompt
Enter Password:
<password> dm-login
LDAP Query
<accepted>
client-SetPassword
User logged in.

21. Native LDAP support
• Increases Security
– Consistent Authentication and Authorization
• Simplifies Policy Management
– Access granted/revoked by LDAP group membership
SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS

22. P4Search
SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS
???
File names,
Changes ...
File content?
C#
.h
JAVA
PPTX
PDF

23. Solution: External Index
P4 Search
SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS
store
search
Search engine indexes content
Stores it in its own database
Users search the index first
Index returns a depot path
Permissions applied to index
results
Returns results to user

24. P4Search
• File content
• P4 Metadata
• P4 attributes
• And the common
metadata if
desired
SERVER OPTIMIZATIONS

25. END USERS

26. P4V – 2014 New Features
• User interface refresh
• Remove excess baggage
• Simplify experience
• Faster rendering
• Faster for large file sets
• “Snappier” responsiveness
END USERS

27. P4V – 2014 New Features
END USERS

28. P4V – 2014 New Features
END USERS

29. P4V – 2014 New Features
END USERS

30. Streams
• Model the flow of change for
the entire product lifecycle
• Visual roadmap for users
• Remove the fear/overhead
of branching and merging
END USERS

31. Streams – 2014 Features
• Streams allows “import”
paths to include
components from one
Stream into another.
– Import is by reference (not a
END USERS
copy)
– Import path is Read Only

32. Streams – 2014 Features
Top Requests of Streams to
facilitate managing Components
with Streams:
– “I want to lock an import a
specific version of my
component.”
– “I want to submit changes to a
referenced component.”
• Makes managing components
END USERS
simpler

33. Streams – Frozen Imports
Paths:
import import/... //depot/import/…@1000
• Freezes the import path (component) at a point in time.
• p4 sync import/…#head behaves like p4 sync import/…@1000
END USERS

34. Streams – Writeable Imports
Paths:
import+ import/... //depot/import/…
• Functions like standard import, enabling you to map a path or
Component from outside the stream.
• But unlike a standard import path, you can submit changes to the
files in an import+ path.
END USERS

35. Streams – 2014 Features
• Frozen Imports and Writeable
Imports
– Simplifies the management of
Components within a Stream
35END USERS

36. SWARM
COLLABORATION

37. Swarm – 2014 Features
• Review Votes
• Required Reviewers
• Lightweight Tasks
• Attachments
• API
SWARM COLLABORATION

38. Swarm – 2014 Features
SWARM COLLABORATION

39. Swarm – 2014 Features
SWARM COLLABORATION

40. Swarm – 2014 Features
SWARM COLLABORATION

41. Swarm – 2014 Features
SWARM COLLABORATION

42. Swarm - Comment Attachments
SWARM COLLABORATION

43. Swarm – Rest API
SWARM COLLABORATION

44. Questions?
Charlie McLouth
cmclouth@perforce.com
• Resources
• Videos of all MERGE 2014 presentations:
perforce.com/MERGE
• Sign up for Monthly Product Updates:
perforce.com/communication-center
• Blog posts from Perforce product teams:
perforce.com/blog