Client Interview

Timothy Bratten works as a software development engineer in the Remote Support and Proactive Services Lab for Hewlett Packard Company.

What are your main responsibilities?

I am the QA Lead for the lab and I drive the development and implementation of QA processes. I also manage a remote team of testers.

What do you consider the most exciting—and/or rewarding—part of your job?

The technology coming out of my lab is on the leading edge. The impact of what my lab produces has a huge, worldwide impact on the success of HP.

What's the most challenging part of the job for you?

The increasingly competitive market that we're in is continually forcing us to try to do more with less. Exercising a lot of creativity and utilizing the most productive tools we can get our hands on is the order of the day.

What is your background with version control and configuration management solutions?

I have worked with SCM tools from several major companies as well as with Open Source tools.

What is your background with SnapshotCM?

We've been using SnapshotCM for three-and-a-half years. We were in a position where our lab was growing and assimilating other labs. This brought a variety of tools that different people were used to using. We had to consolidate on a single solution for the sake of productivity and quality.

We moved to SnapshotCM after performing an extensive analysis of the various tools available. SnapshotCM was relatively new at the time but seemed to be the best solution based on our criteria. We took the risk of migrating to a potentially immature product. I'm glad to say that the risk paid off.

Was there ever a period of time during which you went without a CM solution?

No, not at HP.

Has your team ever used one of the "free" CM tools? If so, why did you stop?

There were several teams that merged into our lab that were using Open Source CM tools. They migrated to SnapshotCM in order to have everyone using the same tools.

Describe your team size and geography.

We have approximately 50 developers, with teams located in four US locations, one Ireland location and two India locations.

What challenges in your team do you face while doing version control?

One challenge is managing multiple major releases (in varying stages of maturity) and minor releases or patches simultaneously.

We also need the ability to be able to version control software on multiple OS platforms.

Do you have any other particular version control challenges that are related to the type of products you develop?

Nothing unique that I can think of, other than perhaps the fact that we are running the SnapshotCM server on a HPUX Service Guarded environment.

What do you feel are the advantages/disadvantages of working with SnapshotCM?

Advantages:

• Easy to learn
• Easy to use
• Snapshot concept is more intuitive (once you are able to change your mindset on SCM) and flexible
• Stable
• Great technical support and quick response when a problem comes up

Disadvantages:

• Limited interoperability with other tools, such as Requirements Management & IDEs

What are your top three favorite features of SnapshotCM?

Easy-to-use GUI
Snapshot concept (better than other paradigms, such as tagging)
Minimal administrative overhead

How does SnapshotCM help your team save time/frustration/money?

Minimal administrative overhead
Good collaborative working environment
Quick learning curve

What is refreshing about using SnapshotCM?

It works well and virtually never goes down.

What are your plans or hopes for working with True Blue Software in the future?

I just hope we can continue to use this tool. We're hearing rumblings of a consolidation of software development lifecycle tools at a higher, worldwide level. If this happens, I don't know what tool I'm going to be asked to use.

Do you have any further comments you'd like to add?

Great product!