New Release Highlights

SnapshotCM release 1.71, posted in late June, delivers significant performance enhancements that everyone should notice:

• Check-in and file import optimizations – In LAN testing on 100 typical source files, import times dropped from a slow 34 seconds to a speedy 9 seconds. When the client and server were on the same machine, times dropped from 27 seconds to a blazing 4 seconds.
• Database transaction optimizations – SnapshotCM's embedded database transaction performance improves by 3x to 5x, depending on the transaction. Use of a more sophisticated commit algorithm maintains the same reliability and robustness of the old algorithm, while significantly improving transaction performance. In addition to helping the file import and check-in performance, this change significantly improves the snapshot-to-snapshot copy performance.
• WAN communication compression – SnapshotCM 1.71 automatically measures the client-server link performance and compresses the traffic when it makes sense to do so. For many operations, compression can reduce the data bytes sent by one half, which for dial-up or overseas links can significantly improve performance.
• File checkout compression – During file checkout operations, the complete file is compressed, which results in better compression efficiency than the lower-level communications compression. The benefit is most significant for dial-up and WAN operations.

All of these performance changes require both client and server upgrades, except for the database optimization, which requires that only the server be upgraded. Once server and clients are updated, everyone should notice the difference. Note that compatibility between older and newer releases is maintained.

A note regarding client-server version compatibility:  Our goal is that a client and a server version released within one year of each other should work together with functionality that is consistent with the older of the two releases. This policy greatly simplifies your deployment in that it doesn't require synchronous updating of your server and all your clients. It also allows a single client release to interact with multiple servers of differing releases.

Release 1.71 also contains other features we think many of you will appreciate:

• Snapshot-to-snapshot copy enhancements – In addition to the performance benefits previously mentioned, release 1.71 improves the copy experience through improved upfront checking and guidance. For example, if another user previously had a file locked in the target snapshot, changes to that file could not be copied without first breaking the lock on the target file. SnapshotCM now warns the user when this is the case and identifies the files with locks. Merges are also now performed before other copies. In addition, if a merge file is not saved during an interactive merge, SnapshotCM provides a clear opportunity to abort the copy. Should an error still occur, the error messages are now less cryptic and more useful overall.
• Viewing snapshot-only files in workspace view – Previously, only files existing in the workspace were displayed in the workspace view. This approach was simple and consistent. However, consider what happens when a co-worker checks in some changes, including a new file. If your workspace view is set to show files needing action, it would previously have shown all the changed files and allowed you to easily update them into your workspace. However, the new file would not be shown, even though it was as much in need of being updated as the other files. To address this issue, the workspace view will now display missing files. They are displayed in a light-gray color to indicate that while they really are not present, they ought to be. This feature can be disabled in the Workspace tab of Project->Options.
• Project browser/workspace browser tracking – When opening a new workspace from the workspace manager, the project browser is set to match the project and the snapshot associated with the workspace, thereby keeping them synchronized. Release 1.71 adds the reverse—when a project is opened that is different from what is being browsed by the workspace browser, the workspace browser is now closed.
• Update options are merged – When selecting the update workspace menu or icon, you are now given the opportunity to select whether you want to update the whole workspace based on the working set, to update only the selected items recursively and ignore the working set, or to cancel the operation.
• Drag and drop file rename – Improves the drag image and drop target display.
• Administration improvements – For many of the file operations, activity logging is improved with the addition of the snapshot path to the log entry. In addition, changes to the logging mask are now always logged. The database is also reopened in read-only mode during a lock for backup, which causes the transaction log file to be cleaned up and better allows shared reading access to backup programs.

See the SnapshotCM Change List for a complete list of Release 1.71 changes.