Solution Summary National Instruments not only uses Perforce for software and hardware engineering activities, but also relies on the flexible SCM solution for a variety of applications in diverse departments such as IT operations, web development, documentation, language localization, customer education, and the sales/marketing departments. NI uses Perforce to store source code and digital assets such as binary files and Word documents

1. www.perforce.com
PERFORCE CUSTOMER
CASE STUDY
“We selected Perforce SCM based on four key factors: speed, ease of
use, flexibility, and cost.”
- Steve Lysohir, Perforce Administrator, National Instruments
Steve Lysohir is a Perforce Administrator at National
Instruments. Jeff Mery is the Systems Administrator at Development Environment at a Glance
National Instruments.
Headquarters
Austin, Texas
Solution Summary
Industry
National Instruments not only uses Perforce for
Data acquisition and instrument control
software and hardware engineering activities, but
also relies on the flexible SCM solution for a variety Type of application
of applications in diverse departments such as Development of software and hardware products
IT operations, web development, documentation, Perforce customer since
language localization, customer education, and the 1998
sales/marketing departments. NI uses Perforce to
store source code and digital assets such as binary Client platforms
files and Word documents. Windows, UNIX, Linux and Mac clients
Server platforms
Intel x86 servers running Windows NT, Windows
Customer Profile 2000, Windows Server 2003, and Linux
Headquartered in Austin, Texas, National Instruments
NetApp storage products used
has more than 3,400 employees and direct operations
NetApp® FAS940c storage cluster
in approximately 40 countries around the world.
Leveraging the PC and its related technologies, Number of users
National Instruments virtual instrumentation solutions Approximately 1,000
increase productivity and lower costs through easy-to- Number of concurrent users
integrate software, such as the NI LabVIEW graphical 500 to 600 on the largest server; up to 100,000
development environment, and modular hardware, total commands per day on the largest server
such as PXI modules for data acquisition, instrument
Number of development sites
control, and machine vision.
6: Austin, Texas; Dallas, Texas; Mountain View,
Calif.; India, China, and Germany
The Challenge: Fragmented SCM and The Perforce Proxy
Storage Infrastructure Used in India, Germany, and Dallas, Texas offices
The company was using a number of different SCM Languages used
platforms, including Microsoft Visual SourceSafe(VSS), C/C++, Assembly, LabVIEW, and others (JAVA,
ClearCase, and various open-source SCM solutions. PL/SQL, etc.)
As the company’s development requirements grew
with six separate development facilities spread around Type of files stored in Perforce
the globe, the need to standardize on one cross- C/C++ and large binaries (JAVA, PL/SQL,
platform SCM system became evident. Project Docs, etc.)
Number of files under source control
Additionally, National Instruments had been using a More than 5 million
variety of direct-attached storage (DAS) devices. As
Perforce repository size
the organization’s data demands continued to grow,
More than 500 GB of files, 18 GB database
however, a better, more strategic storage solution

2. was needed. “What we needed was a consolidated be expanded independently of the computer
storage solution that could keep up with our growing infrastructure. New hardware can be implemented
SCM data requirements,” explained Jeff Mery, systems easily and quickly—and storage capacity can be
administrator for National Instruments. expanded without downtime.
Equally important to the company are the power and
The Solution: Standardize on Perforce performance of the Perforce SCM solution. “We have
and Network Appliance Clustered been very impressed with how well Perforce has been
Storage Solutions able to handle our extensive distributed and concurrent
“We selected Perforce SCM based on four key development environment,” continued Lysohir.
factors: speed, ease of use, flexibility, and cost,” “We calculate that we’re averaging about 100,000
explained Steve Lysohir, Perforce administrator at commands per 24-hour period on our main server.”
National Instruments. “At first, we used Perforce
primarily for software development, but today we are In particular, National Instruments has been impressed
using it as an enterprise-wide solution in a number of by the product’s robust branching capabilities.
different departments. We are also starting to deploy “With Perforce’s powerful branching features, we
the solution on the hardware side of our business.” can manage multiple software releases,” added
Lysohir. “When we migrated to the high-performance
National Instruments not only uses Perforce for NetApp FAS cluster, we decided to take another
software and hardware engineering activities, but look at alternative storage solutions,” explained Mery.
also relies on the flexible SCM solution for a variety “We conducted a series of benchmark tests and
of applications in diverse departments such as were pleased to confirm that the NetApp systems
IT operations, web development, documentation, outperformed all the other solutions we were looking
language localization, customer education, and the at.”
sales/marketing departments. NI uses Perforce to
store source code and digital assets such as binary National Instruments decision to integrate NetApp into
files and Word documents. its Perforce solutions has been very successful, not
only from a performance standpoint, but also from a
“Perforce is one of the most important software reliability standpoint. “The simple fact is, our NetApp
applications in use at National Instruments today,” systems rarely go down,” said Mery. “And that’s
emphasized Lysohir. This critical application required extremely important for a company such as ours. For
a highly flexible and robust storage platform. The example, the time right before a product release is a
company found that the flexibility and modularity of very critical time period. If we lose data at this crucial
Network Appliance™ unified storage solutions offered juncture, we might miss out on our market window
the high performance and large capacity options that altogether.”
their geographically distributed product development
environments required. National Instruments initially And when it comes to service and support, Lysohir
deployed clustered NetApp storage systems to had this to say: “Perforce support has simply been
support its Perforce environment and later upgraded to excellent. They’ve been able to expertly handle anything
a NetApp fabric-attached storage (FAS) cluster. Today, and everything we’ve thrown at them.”
90 percent of all file serving throughout the entire
company is handled by NetApp storage.
The Bottom Line
Together, Perforce and NetApp are assisting
Business Benefits: An Easy Yet National Instruments in increasing performance and
Powerful Solution throughput, boosting development productivity, and
Flexibility and ease of use are very important reducing administrative overhead to the point that the
considerations for the company. “With so many company requires just a single SCM administrator.
different groups relying daily on Perforce, we really The net result for National Instruments has been the
appreciate the flexibility of the system,” continued lowering of overall development costs coupled with
Lysohir. “Each group typically has its own unique accelerated time-to-market for the company’s virtual
requirements and development methodologies. instrumentation solutions.
Because Perforce is flexible and easily customizable
with scripts, it readily accommodates each group’s “With Perforce, our company has been able to improve
development style. The system’s open architecture our development process across the board,” concluded
has turned out to be a value for us.” As performance Mery. “And thanks to NetApp, we’ve been able to
and capacity needs continue to grow, the National increase data reliability, availability, and scalability.”
Instruments NetApp storage infrastructure can
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