Synchronizing

Synchronization is managed by the synchronization process, which runs at scheduled times. Rational Team Concert™ source control users can request a synchronization at any time.

About this task

Schedule synchronizations to run during periods of low Rational® ClearCase® activity; they can take several hours to complete, and lock the Rational ClearCase branch type or stream during that period.

If the integration branch type or stream cannot be locked for the amount of time required for a synchronization, you can create a branch type or stream dedicated to the synchronization process, and then use the standard Rational ClearCase operations to deliver changes from that branch type or stream and the integration branch type or stream.

To view or modify the synchronization schedule for a stream, right click the stream in the ClearCase Synchronized Streams view and click Open Synchronization Schedule.
Important: Before you use the ClearCase Synchronized Streams view to change any of the properties or contents of a synchronized stream, make sure that the host computer you are logged on to is either the host on which the stream was created or is a host of the same platform type (one of Windows®, the UNIX® system, or Linux®) and is also in the same Rational ClearCase registry region.

To open the ClearCase Synchronized Streams view:

Procedure

  1. On the Eclipse main menu, click Window > Show view > Other and expand Jazz source control. You can also type ClearCase in the filter text window to filter the list of views to show.
  2. Select ClearCase Synchronized Streams and click OK. The ClearCase Synchronized Streams view shows all synchronized streams in your team area. To see synchronized streams in other team areas, select Change Team Area from the view menu.
  3. To request synchronization of a stream, select it and click Synchronize icon on the ClearCase Synchronized Streams view toolbar. Synchronization starts as soon as the synchronization build engine discovers the request. The build engine checks for requests at a frequency specified (in seconds) by the stream's BUILD_ENGINE_SLEEP_TIME property.
  4. When synchronization completes, the Status column indicates whether the operation succeeded and whether any merges are required. Status can be any of:
    Initialize succeeded on date and time
    The synchronized stream was created on the displayed date and time but has not yet been synchronized with Rational ClearCase.
    Synchronize pending
    A synchronization request was made but synchronization has not started. This status might also indicate that the synchronization process could not start because the synchronization user account log-in failed
    Synchronize engine is not active
    If the stream stays in this state for longer than two minutes, it usually indicates that the synchronization process should be restarted. For more information, see Starting the synchronization process.
    Synchronize active
    A synchronization request has been accepted by the synchronization process, and the synchronization process is underway.
    Synchronize succeeded
    The most recent synchronization was successful.
    Merge required
    The same file or folder has been changed in both Jazz™ and Rational ClearCase. For more information, see Resolving conflicts during synchronization.
    Synchronize failed
    The most recent synchronization failed. Review the log from that synchronization and fix any errors reported there. One common cause of synchronization failure is the failure of a trigger or other process on the Rational ClearCase stream that is receiving changes. For more information, see Troubleshooting synchronization problems.

Results

For each component that has incoming changes from Rational ClearCase, a change set is created, and a work item is created and associated with the change set. The work item is also associated with the synchronization build. The work item description contains information about the change set. For example, a work item created for an incoming UCM change set contains a list of activities in that change set. These work items are for reference only, and you do not need to perform any actions on them.

If there is a work item template associated with the synchronization stream, the change set work items are generated from the template.

When the synchronization completes, imported changes have been delivered to the synchronized stream and exported changes have been checked in to Rational ClearCase. As is the case for new change sets in any stream that is a workspace flow target, the imported changes are displayed as an incoming change set for the merge workspace (and for any other workspace that has the ClearCase Synchronized Stream as a flow target).

Tip: There may be a short delay after synchronization completes and before the changes to the synchronized stream become visible in the Pending Changes view as incoming change sets for the merge workspace. You can click the Refresh icon icon in the Pending Changes view toolbar to force an immediate check for new incoming and outgoing change sets.

In Rational Team Concert source control, you can verify the result of a synchronization by using the Repository Files view to examine the contents of the ClearCase Synchronized Stream or the History view to examine its history for synchronization events. For more information, see Viewing files in the repository and Exploring the history of components and files. In Rational ClearCase, you can verify the result of a synchronization by listing the contents of a ClearCase Synchronized Stream view that has the same configuration (UCM stream, or branch type and label type) as the Rational ClearCase dynamic view that the New ClearCase Synchronized Stream wizard created.

The synchronization build logs contain information about the synchronized roots (files and folders) before and after synchronization, the synchronizer properties, and the synchronization statistics.


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