We use Perforce to manage our Software Configuration.
My question is how to achieve continuous integration in Perforce?
Are there any tools built on top of Perforce to run continuous integration?
The official one is Electric Cloud, through its "Continuous Delivery" feature. See the press release from May 2012.
However, the tool itself is only one part of the process. The other is how you access the code with Perforce: the blog post "Massive Automation: Agile, Continuous Integration, and Perforce" details how:
Automation, particularly at this scale, puts a tremendous load on the SCM server. Build automation can account for well over 50% of the load on a Perforce server, and that can start impacting the end user experience
So it insists on the presence of replica in order to alleviate the charge put on the central Perforce server.
You can see another process for CI with Perforce in the article "Compartmentalized Continuous Integration".
Perforce has a full list of their Build partners (there are ahem many) here:
http://www.perforce.com/product/components/integrations/build_tools
Jenkins is an awesome and widely used continuous integration tool.
There's a perforce plugin (among lots of other valuable plugins).
Related
I've been looking through the site and I have found some information with regards to this topic, but most of the information is old and possibly outdated.
example: Continuous Integration tools
We are: We're a SaaS product with a microservice (200+) architecture.
We have: We currently do our building through bamboo, and we use nexus as an artifact manager with proper versioning. We deploy those artifacts using bamboo to many different machines. For our frontend deployment we build our code through continua and use AWS codedeploy to handle the deployment. We use Bitbucket and Jira for our development. We have done a POC with bitbucket pipelines but we were lacking proper version management there as well as proper environment management. Setting up 10 servers for every repository manually is just something that we don't want to do.
We want: Since bamboo is EOL next year and since there are many alternatives with different levels of complexity we are currently unsure about the tools that are most suited to our needs. We are currently running everything on dedicated linux machines, but we want to switch to docker containers in AWS in the near future. Support for running gulp scripts etc. would be great since that could help us move from continua and bamboo to one single solution.
The setup of bamboo has been a struggle in the past due to difficulties with the software itself. A nice balance between features and complexity would be best. Does anybody have experience with one or more of the options out there? Some that come to mind are CircleCi, teamCity, GitLab, Jenkins and AWS codePipeline.
Many thanks,
Kenny
Bamboo doesn't EOL next year, but Atlassian forces to switch from perpetual licenses to DC licences to be renewed every year. You can get discount prices when switch to Server to DC licenses. See details at https://www.atlassian.com/licensing/data-center
I would propose Kraken CI. It is open-source and can work on-premise but in the cloud as well. In the cloud, it has support for AWS and Azure, and can do autoscaling depending on a number of tasks.
If you are interested please contact me.
Can anyone advise what is the equivalent of hudson for c# application?
I used to use hudson as a build server for java performing auto deployment for java web and batch job application at scheduled timing and email notify technical team
I like to ask how can i do the same for c# application.
And is there any standard plugins like static code analysis tool in the build server which i can used to scan through the codes
In addition to the great tools mentioned by jamesj, TeamCity works pretty well too. I prefer it to CruiseControl, from a configuration usability perspective, and it is free given you stay within certain constraints.
If you've already invested in TFS as a source control, though, make sure you are getting your money's worth and use it for your builds and deployments too.
If you like Hudson, take a look at Jenkins. I've seen folks using it for .NET builds as well, though I haven't personally used it, and according to their page Jenkins used to be called Hudson, so it would probably be familiar to you.
TFS is great for continuous integration, but you can also use CruiseControl.NET with NAnt. Both of these should be able to run batch jobs, send emails and run automated deployments
StyleCop and FxCop both do static checking and both can be integrated into your build process.
I have seen lots of comparisons for TeamCity vs CCNet, but not much for TeamCity vs FinalBuilder Pro's CI.
Forgive me if I am not comparing apples to apples, I am familiar with TeamCity however the company I work for has already purchased FinalBuilder Pro which has a CI Server included.
I'm hoping to get some comparisons, opinions. If TeamCity does not offer more above FinalBuilder we do not want to have to support two systems.
Thanks in advance.
Here are some features present in TeamCity and unlikely present in FinalBuilder:
True client server-architecture with multiple build agents - TeamCity provides a central point of accessing and managing all of your build agents. Build agents can be enabled/disabled/restarted from single Web-UI, you can also view logs or view thread dumps of builds running on different build agents.
Support of Amazon EC for build agents grid
Pre-tested commit and remote run features (no more broken code in VCS. Well, almost :)
Integration with Visual Studio and other IDEs - a dedicated plugin for that
Extensible reporting, you can include your own HTML-based reports into build results
Comments/Pin/Tags for builds
Cross-build search
Integrated code coverage and duplicates finder for Java and .NET
FinalBuilder has support of some VCS systems, which are not supported by TeamCity, though.
Disclaimer: I'm one of TeamCity developers.
We are using TeamCity for the build orchestration, but using FinalBuilder to actually carry out the individual builds.
I love FinalBuilder for the ease of scripting and maintainability, but I also love TeamCity for all the points in KIR's answer.
In our setup, each TeamCity buildconfig is configured to use the commandline runner, and finalbuilder's fbcmd.exe is invoked with the name of a script to run.
All sweetness and light.
I have done a comparison of the 2 products for a continuous integration talk in the Uk - basically my findings were that TeamCity was more intuitive to use. FinalBuilder seemed to me to be ambigious in its language and seemed to be clunky to set up builds
Once the work was done it was a very good system - but for me TeamCity was much more intuitive and had a better user experience than Final Builder
this is very subjective though - each tool is very good. It comes down to what you are comfortable with and I was much more comfortable with TeamCity
I am referred to Hudson today.
I have heard about continuous integration before, but I have no idea what the heck is a ci-server.
Hudson is really easy to install in Ubuntu and in several minutes I managed to set up an instance of it.
But I don't quite understand the workflow of a ci-server, or how am I supposed to use it?
Please tell me if you have experience about ci, thanks in advance.
Edit:
I am currently using Mercurial as my SCM, and I wonder what is the right way to use it with Hudson.
I have installed the Mercurial Plugin of Hudson, and I create a new job with a local repository. When I commit in the repository the Hudson job is built with the latest version of my source code.
If what I used is a remote repository, what's the workflow like?
Is it something like the following?
Set up a Hudson job with the repository
Developer makes a local clone of the repository
Developer commit and push changes
The remote repository update with the incoming changeset
Run a Hudson build
There may be something I misunderstanded at all, please help me point it out.
Continuous Integration is the process of "integrating software" continuously i.e. as frequently as possible (ultimately after each set of changes) to avoid any big-bang integration and all subsequent problems by getting immediate feedback.
To implement Continuous Integration, you first need to automate the build of your software (where build means of course compiling sources, packaging them, but also compiling tests, running the tests, running quality checks, etc, anything that will help to get feedback on the health of your code). Then you need to trigger the build on the latest version of the sources on a particular event (a change in the repository, a temporal event), to generate reports and to send notifications upon failure (by mail, twitter, etc).
And this is precisely the responsibility of a CI engine: offering trigger mechanisms, being able to get the latest version of the sources, running the build, generating and publishing reports, sending notifications. CI engines do implement this.
And because running a build is CPU and Disk intensive, CI engines usually run on a dedicated machine (or even a farm of machines if you want to build lots of projects).
Back to your question now. Once you've got Hudson running, configure it (Manage Hudson > Configure System): setup the JDK, build tools, etc. Then setup an Hudson Job and follow the steps: configure the location of the source repository, the build tool, the trigger, a notification channel and you're done (you can do more complex things but that's a start).
For more details on the setup, check:
The official Use Hudson guide for more details. << START HERE
Continuous Integration with Hudson - Tutorial.
Spot defects early with Continuous Integration.
Martin Fowler's overview of continuous integration is one of the canonical references. In my opinion, using automation to make sure your code base is healthy is one of the most useful things that you can set up.
Update Sorry that I didn't have much time earlier to expand on my reply. #Pascal_Thivent is right that in order to effectively use CI, you need to be able to automate your builds, tests, etc. CI is actually a good forcing function for this. For me, it's one of those little warning flags if I start to think that it would be too painful to put a build into Hudson. It means that something is not quite right.
What I like about Hudson is that it's flexible enough to accommodate different workflows. We use it for both builds / unit tests and releases. And it eliminates a lot of the worry about certain release procedures only working in one person's environment.
What I don't like about Hudson is that it is occasionally unstable when new builds break plugins. I've had a couple of upgrades (2 out of 10 or so) go bad because of incompatibilities. I do two things now:
I never upgrade my team's Hudson server to the latest and greatest right away. I generally only upgrade when there are significant new features, or bug fixes.
I now have a basic Hudson instance set up with all my plugins on a virtual machine with some dummy builds that I fire up to test out any new upgrades before doing it on the public server.
I am 'relatively new' to unit-testing and TDD. Only more recently have I completed my first production application that has (at least in theory) 100% code coverage. I have done unit-testing in previous projects as well for some time, but not in true TDD fashion and with good code coverage. It had always been an after-thought. I feel I have a pretty good grasp on it now though.
I'm also trying to train the rest of the team on TDD and unit testing so that we can grow togeather and start moving forward with doing unit testing in all of our applications, and eventually progress to doing full TDD w/ automated builds & continous integration. I posted a thread here regarding my plan of attack / training agenda for comments & critisism.
One of the replies (in fact the highest voted) suggested I first setup infrastructure before I go forward with the training. Unfortunately I have no exposure to this, and googling on the topics is difficult because the pages for CruiseControl.NET / nAnt / etc do not really explain the 'why' we should set this up and the 'how' everything connects togeather.
We are a small shop (about 10 developers) and use almost exclusively microsoft technologies and do our development in VB.NET. We are looking to eventually start using C# but that's for another time. I've been using the MSTest project that comes with VS2008 for my unit tests, and I've been building my apps using Visual Studio, and deploying using MSI setup projects... We also (unfortunately) use VSS for our soure control - but that is also on the chopping block and I'd really like to get rid of it and use subversion.
I know that I need to use CruiseControl.NET for CI, and either nAnt or MSBuild for building the applications. And I probably need a build server to run all these builds. But I just can't find anything that 'connects' the dots and explains how they interact with eachother, what should be on your build server, when you should build with your build server (is it just for deployment builds, or even when you just want to compile the app you're developing after making a small change, on your local environment?). I'm also planning on axing MSTest as I've found it to be buggy and will use nUnit instead.
Can anyone perhaps illuminate this gap I have from 'knowing how to do TDD' to 'setting up the proper infrastructure so the whole team can do it and work togeather'? I do understand what continous integration is, but again, I'm not sure how a build server should be setup and how it connects with everything, and why we need one (e.g. the pitch to management).
thanks very much for your time.
What portion of finalbuilder do I need? It seems there's some overlap with final builder and teamcity. Finalbuilder server seems to be a CI server, so I'm guessing I don't need that. FinalBuilder seems to be a build server - but I thought TeamCity is also a build server... And Automise seems to be a visual windows automation tool, like some kind of development platform for winforms apps...
_I also don't see support for final builder in The Team City Supported Apps Diagram : _
Take a look at a webinar I did a few weeks ago - How To Start Unit Testing Successfully. In that webinar I've talked about tools and unit testing best practices and it was aimed at developers just like you who want to introduce unit testing in their organization.
First order of business you want to put a CI (Continuous Integration) process in place and for that you'll need three tools:
Source control
Build server
Build client/script
I hope you already have some form of source control in place so let's talk about the other two.
Build Server - checks the source control and when it changes (or some other condition met) runs a build script on some client (or same machine) there are several build server available I recommend JetBrain's TeamCity it's easy to install and use (great web interface) and is free for up to 20 developers (that's you).
Build Script - on your build client you want to run a build script that would build your solution and run your unit tests. TeamCity has some basic build & test capabilities but for more advanced options (build installer, documentation etc.) you'll need some script runner at work we use FinalBuilder - it's not free but has very good editor. If you're looking for a free alternative have a look at ANT or NANT - but be prepared to edit a lot of XML.
Other tools - Because an important part of successful unit testing is how easy it is to write and run tests on the developer's machines I suggest you check if there are better IDE's or external tools that would help the developers write & run their unit tests.