( ESNUG 472 Item 6 ) -------------------------------------------- [04/30/08]
Subject: an IC Manage vs. Synchronicity and an IC Manage vs. ClearCase eval
> If you have weirdly strong feelings about HW data manangement SW, email
> it to me.
From: [ The Unknown Ninja ]
Hi, John,
I must anonymous.
We use IC Manage at my current company for design management across two
sites through tape-out for an analog/mixed signal project. It has been
reliable with no downtime, and is easy to understand and use as it has
graphical options for all the common commands.
I also have experience with both Synchronicity (now Dassault) DesignSync and
ClearCase from my prior companies, so I can give you a quick comparison of
the differences between using them or IC Manage for hardware design
management.
IC Manage vs. Synchronicity DesignSync comparison:
1. IC Manage is very fast and we have no trouble with transferring large
files across the network. Although we don't have any benchmark data,
we've seen that IC Manage performs significantly faster both on large
files and large numbers of small files compared to Synchronicity, with
just the network transfer time making up the vast majority of transfer
time for IC Manage. For remote sync on different sites a simple proxy
server can be used with IC Manage to minimize WAN latency and get to
LAN speeds for already cached data.
2. With Synchronicity, read-only objects are network-linked back to the
cache until you need to write to it. If you only want to view a large
file then Synchronicity has a symbolic link back to the cache where
only one version of the file is stored. This minimizes expensive
network disk space, which is required to prevent data corruption
because Synchronicity has client-side metadata.
IC Manage deals with files, and their default is to put the full file
in each workspace. They do this because they have no client side
metadata, so they can store workspaces on inexpensive local disks
(which virtually all machines now come shipped with e.g. 120 GB),
boosting file delivery performance and chip design application
performance such as simulation, verification, layout by an order of
magnitude, particularly for large designs. IC Manage supports
symbolic links as an option for objects you are only going to read.
The downside of Synchronicity's symbolic link approach is that when
you need to check-in or check-out the file the link needs to be
removed and the real file put in its place, while with IC Manage's
default approach the real file is already there so it's just a
server command to checkout.
3. Some features that IC Manage has but Synchronicity does not have:
- With IC Manage, we can integrate changed objects bi-directionally
or uni-directionally from one block to another, and can then update
the parent or child depending on where the change was made.
- IC Manage's integrate feature lets us reuse IP from one design to
another. The integration takes seconds and can be done graphically
via the IC Manage Project Manager.
- IC Manage does not require shutdowns to do backups. Most of the
little time we spend on IC Manage is on project configuration,
and we don't have any uptime problems; it is consistently available.
- Handling of network disconnects. If the server is unreachable
people can still work on the data but check-in's/check-out's go
into a pending state, when the server comes back IC Manage naturally
clears the pending actions.
IC Manage vs. ClearCase comparison:
1. ClearCase needs to "sync" vobs on an ongoing basis, so we can't get
data really live on a multi-site project, unless we force-sync it or
we happen to be on the same local network where the change was made.
With IC Manage, the semantics of talking to one server versus multiple
servers (across multiple sites) is indistinguishable. It doesn't
matter where the server is located you can always get up to date data.
2. ClearCase has a steep learning curve, both on the administration side
and on the user side. IC Manage administration and user tools are
nearly identical, all graphically driven, and very easy to setup and
use. With IC Manage it doesn't take long to get teams working and
productive quickly and the end users don't necessarily need to
understand all the intricacies of configuration management to be able
to get their work done -- IC Manage caters to a low learning curve.
3. IC Manage is fully integrated into Cadence DFII. It overrides the
default Cadence Library Manager with its own custom one which enables
easier access to some IC Manage data management features. Their
Cadence interface understands libraries, cells and cell views, and
checks out the multiple files required when editing analog cell views
correctly. Also each engineer can see not only what he or she has
checked out but all users checkouts from their workspaces.
ClearCase is still lacking substantially here.
ClearCase can be difficult to maintain with some companies having dedicated
individuals to keep it going, e.g they must make sure vob syncs are running,
handle complicated merges, force sync's for critical periods, integration
and release procedures can be complex; IC Manage takes minimal maintenance.
- [ The Unknown Ninja ]
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