Nuance Communications is making the move from SVN to Git! Why? To take advantage of its strong branching and merging capabilities... and to keep their developers happy. With wild variations between each product's release model, they have multiple releases of one or more components in play at a given time. So they had to get creative with a branching model. This talk will discuss choosing the right Git branching model for each of your release streams, and managing multiple releases using Bitbucket (including Stash), JIRA, Bamboo, and Maven.

1. MATT SHELTON • ENGINEERING MANAGER • NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS • @MATTSHELTON
Creative Branching Models for
Multiple Release Streams

2. MAVEN
GIT MIGRATION
SUCCESS?
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Agenda

3. Git Migration

4. BRANCHING MODELS
WHY GIT?
GIT-FLOW
Git Migration

5. If you don’t like speed, being productive and
more reliable coding practices then you
shouldn’t use Git.
NICOLA PAOLUCCI, ATLASSIAN
“
”

6. Tools Integration
Solid integration with
JIRA Software,
Bamboo, Crucible is
paramount.
AutomationBranch Isolation
The team wanted three things:
Keep developers
productive and
unblocked while letting
the team be flexible
about what makes it
into a release.
Nothing should be
manual if at all possible.
The development
process should “just
work”.

7. BRANCHING MODELS
WHY GIT?
GIT-FLOW
Git Migration

8. A branching what?

9. Feature
Branching Models
Single Branch
Feature Branching
Master
Master

10. Branching Models
Continuous
Deliverystaging
release
feature
feature

11. Branching Models
Product Releases
BitBucket Server
Team
bit.ly/bitbucket-server-branching
feature
feature
master
release/2.3
release/2.2
bugfix

12. Don’t go it
alone!
www.atlassian.com/git/
Deeper Dive Coming Soon!
Git Workflows a-la-carte
bit.ly/gitalacarte - Summit 2013
Git Microsite

13. BRANCHING MODELS
WHY GIT?
GIT-FLOW
Git Migration

14. We chose
git-flow
bit.ly/git-flow-nvie
Git-Flow Extension
github.com/nvie/gitflow
Original Post

15. Git-Flow Branching Model

16. Master with Active Develop Branch
Master
Develop
2.0

17. Hotfix Branches
Hotfix
Master
Develop
2.0 2.0.1

18. Feature Branches
Hotfix
Master
Develop
Feature
2.0 2.0.1

19. Release Branches
Release
Hotfix
Master
Develop
Feature
2.0 2.0.1 2.1

20. Support Branches
Release
Hotfix
Master
Develop
Feature
2.0 2.0.1 2.1
ReleaseReleaseRelease
Support
1.9.1 1.9.21.9

21. Matt… why do you
need this?

22. Maven

23. BUILD ISOLATION
DEPENDENCY! VERSIONS!
NOTHING IS SIMPLE…
Maven

24. Project Dependencies
product M product C product B
common
product T

25. Artifact Repositories
Hotfix
Master
Develop
Feature
Release
Support
NONE - Does Not Build
libs-snapshot
libs-snapshot
NONE - Does Not Build
libs-release
libs-release
libs-release
libs-qa
SNAPSHOT / PRE-RELEASE RELEASE
libs-staging
libs-staging
libs-staging

26. So what’s the big
deal?

27. Different Product Dev With Shared Common
develop
feature/BA-7
feature/AB-1
common-2.1.0-SNAPSHOT
Artifactory
Repository
common-2.1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar

28. Version Pollution
2.1.0-SNAPSHOT
2.1.0-AB-1-SNAPSHOT
2.1.0-AB-7-SNAPSHOT
develop
feature/AB-1
2.1.0-AB-1-SNAPSHOT 2.1.0-AB-7-SNAPSHOT
feature/BA-7

29. What about
automation?

30. 2.1.0-SNAPSHOT
Modify on Branch/Merge
2.1.0-SNAPSHOT
2.1.0-SNAPSHOT
2.1.0-AB-1-SNAPSHOT
2.1.0-AB-1-SNAPSHOT
feature/AB-1
develop

31. Modify on Branch Only
2.1.0-SNAPSHOT
2.1.0-SNAPSHOT
2.1.0-AB-1-SNAPSHOT
feature/AB-1
develop
2.1.0-SNAPSHOT
ours

32. BUILD ISOLATION
DEPENDENCY! VERSIONS!
NOTHING IS SIMPLE…
Maven

33. libs-snapshot
Artifact Repositories
Hotfix
Master
Develop
Feature
Release
Support
NONE - Does Not Build
libs-snapshot
libs-feature/${git.branch}
NONE - Does Not Build
libs-release
libs-release
libs-release
libs-qa
RELEASESNAPSHOT / PRE-RELEASE
libs-staging
libs-staging
libs-staging

34. Matt! That sounds
so simple!

35. BUILD ISOLATION
DEPENDENCY! VERSIONS!
NOTHING IS SIMPLE…
Maven

36. © 2002 Warner Brothers via giphy

38. That plugin was our last hope.
No. There is another.
ME (NOT STAR WARS)
“
”

39. © 2006 Laney Griner via memeurl

40. Open Source?

41. Success?

42. Git-Flow + Support Branch
Release
Hotfix
Master
Develop
Feature
ReleaseReleaseRelease
Support

43. WORKFLOW INEFFICIENCIES
GREAT STUFF
Success!

44. Create in JIRA Software
Branches are easy!
Pull, Checkout, Work!

45. Bamboo Branch Detection
The Tools Work Well Together
Code Reviews
HipChat Alerts
JIRA ties all of the other
tools together for one view
All feature builds in one plan
Feature branches discovered
when they are created
Team can review in Crucible
Build failures and feature branch
creation alerts keep team on top
of their status

46. Merge Sanity Check
Pull Requests
Developer Gate
Most pull-requests are
approved quickly since
code has been approved
Approver can quickly review the
diff to make sure it lines up with
their understanding.
New teams, click-happy folks,
etc.

47. WORKFLOW INEFFICIENCIES
GREAT STUFF
Success!

48. Create in JIRA Software
Branching is Repetitive
Pull, Checkout, Work!
Once you’re done branching,
anyway…
Create in JIRA Software
Create in JIRA Software
Create in JIRA Software
Branch Name Matters
Extension is purposefully picky
Each project’s artifacts need to
be in the same branch-repository

49. Where are my builds?
Extra Clicks To See All Builds
Empty Plans Required
Some build plans only run
branch builds which are not
displayed immediately.
The “master” branch build plans
require an empty plan that does
nothing.

50. Key Takeaways

51. For Product Release
Branching, git-flow
is great!

52. Maven is a tough
adversary, but can
be convinced to be
an ally.

53. Regardless of your
branching model,
the tools work well
together.

54. Happy Developers
Make Good
Software

55. Thank you!
MATT SHELTON • ENGINEERING MANAGER • NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS • @MATTSHELTON