M+E Daily

Perforce CTOs Brad Hart and Deepak Giridharagopal used a webinar on Jan. 24 to introduce Helix Core Cloud, the company’s new fully managed and hosted Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering of its version control system.

Helix Core Cloud is the “fastest path to the most scalable and secure version control for teams under 50,” according to Perforce. It “streamlines development for small teams and creators working with many large digital assets,” including binaries, game files and 3D art, the company says.

This marks the first time that Perforce Helix Core, which the company says is used by 19 of the top 20 AAA game development studios, is being made available as a fully managed and hosted SaaS offering by Perforce.

During the webinar, “The Fastest Path to Scalable Version Control: Introducing Helix Core Cloud,” the CTOs explained how Helix Core Cloud works, pointing to how easy it is to launch and add users, as well as what administration and maintenance is handled by Perforce.

They touched on the power and flexibility the cloud offers indie studios and small teams in the game industry, why its new offering is important in today’s world of real-time development, and the changing landscape of game development and the need for digital creation efficiency.

Hart has been in the version control space for more than 25 years and with Perforce for the past six years, he said at the start of the webinar. During that time, he has focused on the “largest scalability challenges that come with version control,” which he said includes “large teams, teams with lots of files, large files, lots of people, geographically distributed development – you name it.”

That, he told viewers, “really  becomes clear and becomes a true need in industries like gaming, like semiconductor; that’s where the challenges are the hardest, and that’s kind of where my background has been.”

He added: “That brings us right into the gaming market because that’s where they have all those challenges. Even at small studios, they still have those challenges.”

Giridharagopal’s background, meanwhile, has “always been in sort of large-scale computing distributed systems,” he said. “There’s a lot of overlap between those fundamental kind of concepts and how we would like to approach the concept of version control sort of like now and into the future,” according to Giridharagopal.

“It’s going to start looking more like that,” Giridharagopal said. “I think it’s kind of a natural fit so, as we [look] at developing more things delivered via the cloud, running on the cloud more natively, I think that my background turns out to be pretty relevant to those kinds of things.”

Perforce’s New Offering

“Helix Core Cloud is Helix Core,” said Hart. “It’s the same Helix Core that people have been counting on to ship their world class games, build the chips that go into your phones, build movies and TV shows … but, for the very first time, it’s available in a fully hosted and managed service by Perforce and available at a monthly subscription fee. So those are both firsts for Perforce. It’s a self-contained, fully managed, fully backed up and maintained environment.”

The user “can just point, click, [and] you’re up and running and you can start creating,” he said, adding: “That’s the goal: Reduce the barrier to entry for our customers so they can get up and running quickly. And, if you’re making a game, a movie, a TV show, a semiconductor – whatever you need Helix Core [for], we’re making it easy for you to get there.”