What do you enginerds who work for big companies and do electrical schematics and drawings use for version/revision control?

Currently the division of my company has a relatively small electrical group compared to the mechanical and optical guys and we don't have a proper version control system in place. Our system is basically using a hierarchy of directories and account permissions on a server to control revisions. This is cumbersome, error prone, and not great for government and ISO audits. We use Cadence OrCAD for schematics, PCBs, etc.

The mechanical and optical guys use Autodesk Inventor primarily and use Autodesk's Vault for version control. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way to make OrCAD play with Vault.

Any ideas?

9/30/2009 9:08:49 PM

if the items in question are flat files, you can easily use subversion for version control. if you want something smart that can tell you the differences in your schematics based on the file, well that's best left to something EE specific

9/30/2009 9:10:59 PM

most of my stuff is just copies of the files and renamed

filename_rev1
filename_rev2
filename_rev3

and so on

9/30/2009 9:14:11 PM

i don't think we need to be able to diff between schematics (the files themselves are flat and contain everything). We would need to record a change log for ever check in, though.

Really, its quite basic. We simply need to be able to check in and check out files w/ a clear and secure history and change log. Then we need to tag groups of files for a "release". so Release A would be file1_v2, file2_v9, file3_v22, etc.

Something EE/schematic friendly would be great, but not necessary at this point. We're also willing to get away from OrCAD if something greater comes a long, but so far it has be the best vendor parts databases and while very clunky, is better than a lot of options.

It also has to run in windows. And be affordable.

9/30/2009 9:21:44 PM

yeah.. svn is free

9/30/2009 9:31:40 PM

svn is free and indeed a quality product

but i've also fallen in like with SourceGear Vault. Especially the diff/merge tool, which is available as a free standalone download. i use it to replace tortoisesvn and visual studio source control diff tools

[Edited on September 30, 2009 at 9:49 PM. Reason : i don't know anything about engineering or schematics though. for me it's been mostly code stuffs]

9/30/2009 9:48:29 PM

yea svn would be the way to go. http://subversion.tigris.org/ . There are free clients and servers for just about every os. Tortoise svn is a pretty good windows client, idk about server though. Maybe try this server: http://www.visualsvn.com/server/ Its free for commercial use and should do everything you need.

SVN should be able to tell the difference between the files, but unless they're easily readable the diffs would be kinda worthless for documentation. Make sure everyone comments their commits properly so you know what the changes are without having to check out each revision and opening the file.

9/30/2009 9:55:08 PM

As already suggested, I'd also go with subversion.

9/30/2009 9:59:26 PM

git

9/30/2009 10:16:14 PM

CMVC?

9/30/2009 10:39:16 PM

Look at PTC's Windchill... I think it has ECAD integrations with Cadence. But its not exactly cheap... It can do version/revision control, but is more of a PLM system, so it may be too heavyweight for what you're wanting at.


/shameless plug

9/30/2009 10:49:04 PM

I used subversion for Visio, illustrator, and photoshop files at my last job. You can't diff (with those filetypes), but it doesn't look like you need to.


Tortoise SVN as your client and VisualSVN as the server is your best bet in a windows environment, for what you're looking to do

[Edited on September 30, 2009 at 11:46 PM. Reason : and as said, both are free]

[Edited on September 30, 2009 at 11:47 PM. Reason : .]

9/30/2009 11:45:43 PM

sure you can diff those files - it just might not be all that useful...

10/1/2009 12:24:48 AM

Micron uses DesignSync DF2, by Synchronicity. Or I think that's who it's by - i haven't figured out yet who owns what, or what program I use daily are part of the revision control, which are library managers, which are the actual layout/schematic viewers, etc. Anyway, it all seems to be very closely integrated with Cadence, and it stored schematics, layout, and netlists.

this is the only real info I can find on it.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Synchronicity+Releases+DesignSync+DFII:+Front+to+Back+Data+Management...-a053626605
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EKF/is_2254_45/ai_53969063/
http://www.3ds.com/fileadmin/PRODUCTS/ENOVIA/PDF/datasheet-Synchronicity-DesignSync.pdf
http://www.matrixone.com/pdf/ds_dsdfii.pdf

If you're already using a Cadence product, I'm sure your Cadence rep could point you in the right direction.

10/1/2009 1:14:45 AM

clearcase

[Edited on October 1, 2009 at 1:32 AM. Reason : s]

10/1/2009 1:31:00 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revision_control_software

I'll agree with subversion. Even in its infancy stages, did a heck of a nice job. Integrated Windows Explorer via Tortoise SVN client was also a big plus.

Question on this though ... who in the company will be responsible for paying / maintaining / supporting use of said software? This may make a BIG difference in the choice of which software to pick. Proprietary / cost-model may be the way to go depending on the answer to this question.

10/1/2009 7:35:45 AM

Quote :

"sure you can diff those files - it just might not be all that useful..."

semantics. you know what I meant.

10/1/2009 9:08:54 AM

for everyone suggesting ClearCase, SVN or CVS just because those are the most popular for software revision control, you need to realize storing schematics and layout databases has different requirements than storing mostly plain text files

10/1/2009 9:44:25 AM

^ since when has that stopped TWW at being experts on everything

considering that nobody that has posted thus far fills the OPs initial requirement.....
The only one 2 people who have posted with any clue in this thread are agentlion and zorthage.
He doesn't need a source control repository he needs a document management system, the needs are wildly different.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_management_system

10/1/2009 10:10:17 AM

I internshipped at a medium sized company (owned by a giant company) a few years ago that used some SAP product management software or something like that. They had both mechanical and electrical drawings and used the software to check out, revise, approve, and release drawings. Just about everybody used it now that I think about it (planners, bean counters, material people, management) but I was only exposed to the check out a drawing/submit it for approval side of things.

On the mechanical side they used Inventor and Autocad Mechanical. I'm not sure what the electrical people used.

[Edited on October 1, 2009 at 11:03 AM. Reason : ]

10/1/2009 11:03:21 AM

[Edited on October 1, 2009 at 11:29 AM. Reason : nvm]

10/1/2009 11:27:49 AM

Quote :

"considering that nobody that has posted thus far fills the OPs initial requirement..... The only one 2 people who have posted with any clue in this thread are agentlion and zorthage. He doesn't need a source control repository he needs a document management system, the needs are wildly different."

...the fuck?

Someone didn't read the requirements, but it wasn't those of us pointing to the cheap, easy, free solution.

Read em below, and then get off your fucking high horse.

Quote :

"i don't think we need to be able to diff between schematics (the files themselves are flat and contain everything). We would need to record a change log for ever check in, though. Really, its quite basic. We simply need to be able to check in and check out files w/ a clear and secure history and change log. Then we need to tag groups of files for a "release". so Release A would be file1_v2, file2_v9, file3_v22, etc. Something EE/schematic friendly would be great, but not necessary at this point. We're also willing to get away from OrCAD if something greater comes a long, but so far it has be the best vendor parts databases and while very clunky, is better than a lot of options. It also has to run in windows. And be affordable."

Small group - check
Check in / check out (probably with locking) - check
Tagging a release - check
Runs in windows - check
affordable - check

Note that he didn't mention a need for workflows or anything else that would go unused in their setup. zorthage mentioned what you were getting at, but he was cognizant of the requirements.




SO basically, if you don't want to read that TSB-style wall of text and quotes:

Eat a bowl of dickup and read the reqs next time before you come into a thread expecting people to jerk you off because you suggested the utopian outcome.

10/1/2009 8:03:22 PM

Just save each schematic with a different name - problem solved :-)

live life on the edge!!

10/1/2009 8:11:16 PM

^ if it's good enough for Dr. joenumbers, it should be good enough for anyone!

10/1/2009 8:21:14 PM

nick's my e-hero.

good info, guys, thanks. i'll read up.

10/1/2009 8:36:57 PM

^^^^ There's a still a big difference.

SVN, VC, GiT and most other version control systems use a delta based storage and diffing system. There's also the issues of storage, offline, collaboration, and workflow processes.

Any version control system will work, but they may not be very robust for, or easy to deal with for document management. It can be REALLY tough to find the right version in a rollback situation, it's nearly impossible to cross-index related documents, and there's a lot higher perf penality for binary versus text because of the storage methodology used in source versioning system.

danny, might be worth checking out http://www.alienbrain.com it isn't free (the server is free, client licenses are $$), but it will do pretty much exactly what you need.

[Edited on October 1, 2009 at 8:44 PM. Reason : .]

10/1/2009 8:42:51 PM

Quote :

"Just save each schematic with a different name - problem solved :-)"

I can't believe I'm responding to you, because you kind of suck at life, but at my former job (where dan, agentlion, and I worked together) the version control system we had when I came into the company was SCCS with an added in-house config management methodology layered on top. So file names would look like

h1trp.pat

for a pattern that was usable by all products regardless of size, shrink, technology. A 1Gb 90nm DDR2 specific version of that file would be named

h1trp_1G_T90.pat

Somewhere along the way they (zee Germans, the mothership) started adding numbers within the filenames to indicate new test coverage that is a slight modification of the original that perhaps not all projects would need or not need right now. So that filename would become

h2trp.pat, etc.

After about 2 years with the company, one of my colleagues and I got tired of the madness and all the stupid extra work required for this and we started pushing hard for a replacement, and we were preferring ClearCase. We took a trip to Munich where they already had their mind made up for CVS, which doesn't do config management very well. So those dumb motherfuckers took all the same old scripts they had written for SCCS to attempt to manage the config management in CVS with more or less the same naming conventions. When I started there, this tool was probably a 500 or so line perl script with a 40 line config file and when we bankrupted it was 7000 lines and probably a 200 or more line config file.

10/1/2009 10:35:50 PM

I'm no EE, so how big are these files usually? I've worked at two different companies in the finance industry (very compliance intensive) and they both used Documentum for these type of things. I just don't know how well it is going to scale if you're talking about >10mb files or something.

10/1/2009 10:45:24 PM

^^ no matter which site one works at, its always a guarantee that the other site is full of total morons

^ greater than 10mb??? LAWL...

[Edited on October 1, 2009 at 11:00 PM. Reason : s]

10/1/2009 11:00:31 PM

Quote :

"^^ no matter which site one works at, its always a guarantee that the other site is full of total morons"

No, when it came to real electronics test engineering and device type of knowledge, my counterpart group was years ahead of us. Literally. Many were physics PHds, and a lot of them had been with the company for more than 10 years, some close to 20, and some more than 20. But, as far as software engineering concepts are concerned, they never learned how to grow the business from a single site of about 20 engineers working on 3-5 products to 6 sites across the globe with probably 200 engineers and easily 30 different product variations at any given time.

Some former design manager from a different group got shuffled around (because you can't fire people in Germany, you just move them out of the way) into our organization chain and shot down ClearCase before he ever heard our argument because the time he worked with it 12 years ago (this was 4 years ago for this discussion) it was difficult to work with.

I nearly limited my career by being too vocal about the inadequacies of our organization.

10/1/2009 11:08:04 PM

yea... how'd that work out for your career anyway

10/1/2009 11:24:10 PM

When in doubt, ADD MORE UNDERSCORES AND VERSION INCREMENTS


Big_Ass_File_jadns_v14_revXXY_part2_05312009.cad

[Edited on October 1, 2009 at 11:27 PM. Reason : .]

10/1/2009 11:25:29 PM

h2trp_1g_tsmn90_rev1a_mar09_swilliam_layout_for_munich_3ghz_test.pat
h2trp_1g_tsmn90_rev1a_mar09a_swilliam_layout_for_munich_2ghz_test.pat
h2trp_1g_tsmn90_rev1a_mar09b_swilliam_layout_for_munich_2ghz_test.pat

see... it works perfectly

[Edited on October 1, 2009 at 11:29 PM. Reason : s]

10/1/2009 11:28:31 PM

user kiljadn has locked file "h2trp_1g_tsmn90_rev1a_mar09b_swilliam_layout_for_munich_2ghz_test.pat"


would you like to break the lock and edit anyway?

yes [] cancel []

10/1/2009 11:33:28 PM

uhh... no way n00b... just go in and delete the *.lck file before you even open the program

10/1/2009 11:34:46 PM

Quote :

"yea... how'd that work out for your career anyway"

I dunno, an extra promotion, pay raise, and 2 more months employment over 90% of the rest of the site?

Ultimately, the bankruptcy equalized that because I didn't get severance I could have gotten (that others did) but it didn't exactly get in the way of landing another job at more pay when everything is factored in, the same excellent insurance, and better retirement benefits. Not to mention one refreshing summer of doing nothing.

10/1/2009 11:36:45 PM

God damn it Solinari, I was IN THAT FUCKING FILE

10/1/2009 11:49:48 PM

oh sorry i wonder if there is a backup somewhere

10/1/2009 11:50:28 PM

degenerated discussion ITT

10/1/2009 11:53:01 PM