Plastic Cloud Edition

Welcome to Plastic Cloud Edition - the Plastic SCM hosted solution.

This guide will help you get up to speed with Plastic Cloud Edition and its key concepts.

This guide serves as a walkthrough to get your Plastic repositories (repos) up and running in the cloud.

Plastic Cloud is the hosted Plastic SCM server solution.

We have two different Cloud products:

Plastic Cloud Edition

For teams who do not need an on-premises server. The only central location is the Cloud.
Team members can have local clones of the repositories or alternatively work directly connected to the Cloud.
Requirements: Purchase Cloud Edition (not Enterprise + Cloud).
This guide documents this version of Plastic Cloud.

Plastic SCM Enterprise Edition plus Cloud extension

This product is designed for teams who require an on-premises server (included in Enterprise Edition) and host repositories on the Cloud.
Requirements: Purchase Enterprise Edition and add the Cloud Extension (not Cloud Edition).

You will work with Plastic Cloud just as you do with a conventional Plastic SCM server; you will push and pull branches, create repositories, manage permissions, and more.

Internally, Plastic Cloud uses a fully redesigned Plastic server core. The cloud core runs on several cloud roles instead of a single computer. This means that it can be horizontally scaled by simply adding more roles (computers).

Plastic Cloud is a multi-tenant and highly scalable solution capable of handling thousands of different organizations. It makes the best possible use of the underlying cloud infrastructure.

In practice, this means you don't have to worry about server setup or maintenance. We'll handle that for you!

There are many scenarios where Plastic Cloud Edition fits:

• You are a small team and don't want to handle any infrastructure. You're already running Plastic on your laptops, but you don't want to install and administer your own Plastic server. However, you still need a central rendezvous point for the team. Plastic Cloud extension is for you.
• You are part of a large corporate team working in several locations across the world. You need a central server, but you don't want to depend on your IT group. You can set up a Plastic Cloud organization and use it as your hosted central server.
• You are a game development team (or any other team dealing with large repositories and huge files), and you couldn't find a suitable solution with mainstream hosting providers of version control software. Git-based solutions have the well-known 2GB repos limit. If you need more than that, Plastic Cloud is for you.

These are just 3 key scenarios, but there are many more. Some teams asked us to use the Plastic Cloud extension as a live cloud-based backup, and that's certainly also an option.

Plastic Cloud Edition is designed with fully distributed teams in mind. But, Plastic Cloud Edition also supports centralized and mixed ways of working:

Working centralized:

The team members that don't want intermediate repositories and no push/pull actions can go for a simpler direct checkin to Plastic Cloud cycle.

This is the best option for artists in games together with Gluon. And it's also available for coders who want to work centralized with Plastic (the developer GUI).

Working distributed:

Each developer works on their machine. Each developer has their own local Plastic SCM repo (or collection of repositories) so that checkins are always local and blazing fast.

The developers belong to the same Plastic Cloud organization and deliver changes to Plastic Cloud through push/pull.

This is the best option for developers using Plastic (the developer GUI).

Working both distributed and centralized:

Your team doesn't have to stick with working—distributed or centralized. Some team members can work centralized and some others distributed.

The organization is the way to handle different sets of repositories in the cloud. Inside the organization, you can create as many repositories as you need.

Complete one of these steps to create a Plastic Cloud Edition organization:

• Go to the plasticscm.com website.
• Run directly Plastic Cloud Edition.

1. Go to your plasticscm.com Cloud dashboard to request a Plastic Cloud Edition license.

   Or, go to plasticscm.com/plasticscm-cloud-edition and click the Try now button to open the Plastic Cloud subscription page.

2. Enter your subscription and account information plus the following data related to the organization:
   • Organization name - this is to identify your repos in the cloud... so choose a cool name.
   • Datacenter - select the data center that is closest to you to improve data transfer speed.

The organization will generate and we'll let you know. You will be able to sign in to the Plastic Cloud :-) and start using it.

1. Download and run the Plastic Cloud Edition installer.
2. Complete the installation instructions (you know—next, next...):
   
3. Once the installation is complete, you will see the Plastic Cloud Edition welcome dialog:
   • If you already have a Plastic account, you can log in to Cloud Edition using the same login you use for plasticscm.com. Click the Login tab and enter your plasticscm.com credentials:
     
   • If you don't have a plasticscm.com account, you will need to sign up. Click the Sign up tab and create a plasticscm.com account, or sign up using your Unity ID and password:
     
4. Once you've logged in or signed up, you are now a Plastic Cloud Edition user (and a plasticscm.com user).

   To create your organization, click Create to start:

   
5. In this new dialog, enter the following information:
   • Organization name - this is to identify your repos in the cloud... so choose a cool name.
   • Datacenter - select the data center that is closest to you to improve data transfer speed.
6. Click Create.

The organization will generate and we'll let you know. You will be able to sign in to the Plastic Cloud :-) and start using it.

Once Plastic Cloud Edition is installed, it's time to start working with your Plastic Cloud Edition organization.

When you log in for the first time to Plastic Cloud Edition (by running the Plastic Cloud Edition installer), the system checks if you belong to an organization:

• If you belong to an organization, click Join. If you have or belong to more than one organization, select the one you belong to:
  
• Otherwise, you can create an organization, as seen previously:
  

Once you join or create the organization, select the tool you want to work with:

• The classic Plastic GUI for developers.
• Gluon, the Plastic GUI for artists.

Gluon lets you work centralized:

• Select an existing repository to join an existing project or create a local or a remote (cloud) repository.
• This will create a local workspace pointing to the selected repository.
  

• Working centralized:
  • This option lets you create a workspace connected to a cloud repository.
  • You must select an existing cloud repository or create a new one.
  • Plastic creates a local workspace (under the selected location) in your machine.
  
• Working distributed:
  • As the Git way of working, you work with a local repository and then push/pull to the cloud repository.
  • You must select an existing cloud repository or create a new one.
  • Plastic creates a local repository and workspace (under the selected location) in your machine.
  • If you want to, Plastic also creates a Sync View. The Sync View is a way to push and pull changes in a very comfortable way.
    Important! When replicating from the cloud to a local server, the local server must be the source and the cloud server the destination. Without this, Plastic can't run the Sync.
  

Gluon lets you work centralized.

This means that you have a workspace (a working copy with your files), and you directly checkin to a repository in a Plastic Cloud server. There is no intermediate repository:

In the following Gluon example, you will have:

• a workspace (quake3wk).
• in your machine (Path on disk).
• pointing directly to a remote repository (quake3).
• in your Cloud organization (test@cloud).

You can work centralized with Plastic, the developer GUI.

This means that you have a centralized workspace (a working copy with your files), and you directly checkin to a repository in a Plastic Cloud server. There is no intermediate repository:

In the following example, there is:

• a workspace (validationsw).
• in your machine (Path on disk).
• pointing directly to a remote repository (validation).
• in your Cloud organization (test@cloud).

Once you configured this centralized configuration, you will work with Plastic as you would typically do by:

• checking in your changes from the Pending changes view
• creating, switching, and merging branches from the Branch Explorer

and so on.

And Plastic, the developer GUI, also lets you work distributed.

In a distributed workflow, you have a workspace and a local repository (the intermediate repository) where you directly checkin to, and then you push/pull to the remote repository in a Plastic Cloud server:

In the following Plastic example, you will have:

• a workspace (testsrc)
• in your machine (Path on disk)
• pointing to your repository (testsource)
• locally (localhost:8087)

Then, you will work with Plastic as you would normally do by:

• checking in your changes from the Pending changes view
• creating, switching and merging branches from the Branch Explorer

and so on.

And then, you push/pull the changes in your local repository to the remote (Cloud) repository:

Let's see how to access your Cloud server and list your Cloud repositories both in Gluon and Plastic.

1. In Gluon, click the Switch workspace button.
2. In the dialog:
   • In Windows, click Create a new workspace and then click to choose a repository:
     
   • In Linux and macOS, go to the Repositories tab:
     

     Gluon - Linux - Open the repositories view

     

     Gluon - macOS - Open the repositories view

     
3. Type organization_name@cloud as the server name. In this case, the organization is test. So, test@cloud:
   
4. Then, click (refresh) (or press the enter key) to access the server.
5. If you haven't accessed this server before or your credentials are not stored, you'll be prompted to enter the credentials to access the cloud server.

   For example, trying to access robotmaker@cloud for the first time will require credentials. You must be an authorized user of this organization (robotmaker in this case):

   

   Enter the credentials you used to register at www.plasticscm.com.

   If you choose to remember the credentials for the next time, then a connection profile is created. This way, you won't have to enter the credentials the next time.
6. You are now connected to test@cloud, and the list of available repositories in the cloud server appears:
   

   Gluon - Windows - Cloud repositories list

   

   Gluon - Linux - Cloud repositories list

   

   Gluon - macOS - Cloud repositories list

   

   If the list is empty, it's because a repository hasn't been in the cloud server yet.

7. Create a repository:
   • In Windows, go back to the "Create a new workspace" dialog and click New near the repository text box.
   • In Linux and macOS, right-click the repositories list and select Create new repository.

   Then, enter the name of the new repository in the Cloud:

   

   Gluon - Windows - Creating a cloud repository

   

   Gluon - Linux - Creating a cloud repository

   

   Gluon - macOS - Creating a cloud repository

   
8. And then our repo list will refresh, this time showing our new cloud repository:
   

From here on, you will be able to work with this cloud repository normally.

1. In Plastic, open up the Cloud view. You'll see something like this:
   

   Plastic GUI - Windows - Open the Cloud view

   

   Plastic GUI - Linux - Open the Cloud view

   

   Plastic GUI - macOS - Open the Cloud view

   
2. Type organization_name@cloud as the server name. In this case, the organization is test. So, test@cloud:
   
3. Then, click (refresh) (or press the enter key) to access the server.
4. If you haven't accessed this server before or your credentials are not stored, you'll be prompted to enter the credentials to access the cloud server.

   For example, trying to access robotmaker@cloud for the first time will require credentials. You must be an authorized user of this organization (robotmaker in this case):

   

   Enter the credentials you used to register at www.plasticscm.com.

   If you choose to remember the credentials for the next time, then a connection profile is created. This way, you won't have to enter the credentials the next time.
5. You are now connected to test@cloud and the list of available repositories in the cloud server appears:
   

   Plastic GUI - Windows - Cloud repositories list

   

   Plastic GUI - Linux - Cloud repositories list

   

   Plastic GUI - macOS - Cloud repositories list

   

   If the list is empty, it's because a repository hasn't been in the cloud server yet.

6. Create a repository:
   • In Windows, click the New repository button.
   • In Linux and macOS, right-click the Cloud repositories list and select Create new repository.

   Then, enter the name of the new repository in cloud:

   
7. And then, your repo list will refresh, this time showing your new cloud repository:
   

From here on, you will be able to work with this cloud repository normally.

As you have seen above, all you need to do to access a Plastic Cloud repository is use the combination organization_name@cloud as the server name.

A regular local repo in your machine is named: repo@local.

At Plastic Cloud, this repo is named: repo@organization_name@cloud.

The @cloud part is just a shortcut to tell Plastic to connect to Plastic Cloud. You can do something like this:

And, as you can see, fantasywarrior3d@cloud is equivalent to fantasywarrior3d@cloud.plasticscm.com.

Once you get the confirmation that your organization is ready, you'll be able to access your Cloud dashboard by logging into https://www.plasticscm.com/dashboard/cloud.

Once you log in, you will enter the area to manage the Cloud organizations. There aren't many options at this point, so you'll see it is straightforward to use.

Basically, all that you see is a list of the organizations you belong to.

If you are the administrator of an organization (we'll make you the admin when you request the organization), you'll be able to manage it.

• If you click Edit, you'll see something like this:
  

  This is a simple page where you can edit your organization's name and description.

  Important!

  The Organization name field is only writable when the organization is cloud2.

• You can click the View activity button to open a new page where you can see the usage of your entire cloud organization:
  
• You can also click the Details link to launch a new page with the details by repository:
  

Note: Depending on the usage amount you’ve purchased, the usage gauge is adjusted every time the usage amount touches every 25GB threshold.

Read the following section to learn how and what you can manage of your Cloud organization.

Click the Edit lock rules button in the Cloud dashboard to configure the exclusive checkout.

The lock rules let you configure exclusive locking for binary files when you perform a checkout.

The exclusive checkout (or locking) is helpful when working with files that cannot be merged, like binary files (images, video, audio...).

Using this feature, you can tell Plastic SCM what kinds of files need locking on checkout. If enabled, checking out a file will prevent other users from doing the same thing until you checkin or undo your changes. You can be assured that no new revisions of their checked-out files will appear while they're working on them.

The system performs the following operations:

• Is the file locked? If yes, it can't be checked out.
• If it isn't locked, the file can be potentially locked. Plastic SCM will check whether the file name matches any of the defined lock rules. If the file name matches the rules, the file will be locked.

You can define rules that can be applied to:

• All repositories (organization rules)
• Specific repositories. These rules can be file extensions (such as *.xlsx, *.png, or *.blend) or specific file names (such as readme.txt).

1. To create/edit lock rules for the organization (all repositories):
   1. Enter the locking rules you want to apply. You can click on the Load common lock rules button to load the most typical rules used (related to binary files). You can add more rules or remove some of them.
      
   2. To store the lock rules, click the Save button.
2. To create/edit lock rules for a specific repository:
   1. For the repository that you want to edit lock rules, click the Add repository rules button:
      
   2. A new empty field will appear under the repository name:
      
   3. Enter your own rules or load the suggested common lock rules by clicking Load common lock rules. You can edit them as well.
   4. Click the Save button.

   You can remove all repository rules at any time by clicking the Clear repository rules.

Plastic Cloud uses the same underlying mechanism to handle users and groups as a regular Plastic SCM server. But, unlike Plastic SCM, instead of retrieving users and groups from LDAP, Active Directory, or a custom defined user/password file, Plastic Cloud works as follows:

• Users are retrieved from plasticscm.com. You can invite any user to join your organization, and once they sign up to plasticscm.com, they will be valid users.
• Groups are defined by organization. It is like a cloud-based groups.conf defined from the organization management area. You can add invited users to the groups you create.

You can define access policies to the cloud server for users and groups. You configure access policies by using the Plastic SCM GUI tool or the command line, like you would do with a regular server. At this point, you only need to define the users, the groups, and their relationships in the web interface.

You can define users as administrators in the web interface and they can access the organization's administration area. It doesn't have any influence on the Plastic repositories.

To get a better understanding of Plastic SCM users and groups, please refer to our online documentation.

In the Users and groups organization administration area, click Add new user, and you will arrive at this page:

You can enter the email of any user you want to invite, even if they are not yet a plasticscm.com user. They will need to sign up to plasticscm.com prior to signing in, but you can already configure your groups counting on them as valid users.

By default, any new user will be automatically added to the built-in group called Developers. Of course, you can delete the group or rename it.

By default, every new organization comes with two groups: Administrators and Developers. Every new user marked as Administrator will go to the Administrators group, and everyone else to Developers.

You can add new groups, delete the default ones, or rename them.

You can also add users to a group. Just click the to the right of the group name to access the group configuration area:

In the above example, the pre-configured Developers group is being edited.

From here, you can delete users and add new ones and also go to create new groups. You can also rename the group and edit its description.

Click Add new member, to go to the following page:

From here, you can type a user's email that you want to add to the group.

As you have seen, configuring your organization is straightforward. You'll get everything you need with just a few clicks.

At this time, configuring users and groups is all that you can do in the web interface. Anything else is done, as usual, from the Plastic SCM GUIs or command line.

What is Plastic Cloud Edition?

Plastic Cloud Edition is a hosted, multi-tenant, cloud-based Plastic SCM server that organizations can use to store their Plastic SCM repositories in the cloud. More at plasticscm.com/plasticscm-cloud-edition.

What do I need to use Plastic Cloud Edition?

You'll need a Plastic Cloud Edition subscription to store your repositories in the Plastic SCM hosted service.

Does Plastic Cloud Edition require a local (on-premises) Plastic SCM Server?

Short answer: No. Yes, if you are a developer working distributed with the regular Plastic SCM by running push/pull or directly checkin to the cloud organization.

Let's go for the longer explanation now.

Programmers can achieve a better experience by using a distributed workflow with Plastic SCM. This means they will get better performance by pushing/pulling their branches in local repos to/from Plastic Cloud, instead of doing direct checkin to cloud. To work distributed, you need a local server, whether central to the team, installed locally for each developer, or a mix of these combinations.

It is still possible to checkin directly to Plastic Cloud. It is the recommended way to work for users of Plastic Gluon, the tool designed for artists in game development, document writers, project managers, and other team members who don't work on code but work on other binary assets and don't need merge operations. Developers can also checkin directly and merge on Plastic Cloud if they need to.

How do I upload my data to Plastic Cloud?

You just need to push your data from your local Plastic SCM server to Plastic Cloud.

You will push to the Cloud the same way you push to a regular remote Plastic SCM server.

You can set up your sync view to push/pull branches in batches. Remember, your remote repos will be referenced as reponame@organization@cloud. Example: tetris@arcadegarage@cloud. The @cloud part simply tells Plastic SCM to connect to the cloud server instead of specifying a full IP or domain name.

Can I checkin and merge with Plastic Cloud Edition?

Yes, direct checkin and merge have been available since 5.4.16.792 (Nov-14, 2016). We discouraged direct checkin and merge for developers because we thought it was slower and they would be better served by push/pull from their local repos, but we got many requests from customers who preferred this simpler way of working.

We believe that artists in game development, document writers, project managers, and other team members who don't work on code but other assets will largely benefit from Plastic Gluon + Plastic Cloud. They will be able to perform direct checkins and download only the assets or content files they need. Also, exclusive checkout may be configured to ensure only one person is modifying each file at a given time.

We believe code developers can achieve a better experience by using a distributed workflow with Plastic SCM. This means they will probably be better served by pushing/pulling their branches to the Cloud, but they can work centralized too if they prefer. They can also merge using the Cloud server.

Some notes for developers:

• Checkins will be slower in the Cloud because data will have to travel through the Internet (and hence through a higher latency network), as opposed to performing checkins locally or to a server on your LAN. This is fine for artists and team members working on documents, but developers who expect super-fast checkins will find it slow. In short, checking in to the Cloud for developers is like going back to the old SVN days. Still, we optimize the entire cycle continuously for developers who prefer to work centralized.
• However, while it's certainly also affected by network latency, pushing and pulling branches is something you don't do as frequently. This means that the impact of having a distant server is slower. This is the DVCS style of working: Many local checkins and then just a push, the same thing that many developers do with Git/GitHub.

In short, you can checkin and merge on Plastic Cloud, but we recommend that developers check the DVCS + Plastic Cloud workflow if they feel they need faster operations.

Can I lock files if I use Plastic Gluon to access Plastic Cloud?

Yes, you can. And, you can configure the files that will be locked on checkout from your Plastic Cloud organization's dashboard.

Which version of Plastic SCM do I need to access Plastic Cloud?

You need 5.4.16.719 or higher. Our network API was updated and expanded for Plastic Cloud, so older versions will not work.

Is the connection to Plastic Cloud secured?

Yes, Plastic Cloud only allows SSL connections. Plastic knows that every connection to @cloud must be secured.

While a regular Plastic SCM server listens both in TCP and SSL, Plastic Cloud is restricted to SSL to enforce secure communications.

Thus, your server or client connection to the Cloud must be correctly configured to use SSL (which is the default out-of-the-box setting, by the way).

What happens if I accidentally remove a repository in Plastic Cloud?

Don't panic. Your data is still available.

Actually, when a repository is removed, it's just marked as deleted. You will have up to 14 days to resurrect (or undelete, as we called it on the GUI) a deleted repository. Once these 14 days pass, the repository data and metadata will get removed forever.

Note: You have to be the owner of the organization to see the "deleted" repositories list and to undelete them.

Where is Plastic Cloud hosted?

Plastic Cloud is currently hosted in Microsoft Azure. That means it's built on top of well-proven technology by a trusted provider.

Plastic SCM metadata is stored in a combination of SQL Server Azure plus blob storage. Databases are replicated for high availability and redundancy.

Versioned files are stored in Azure blob storage. Each blob is replicated up to six times on two different physical locations.

What does it mean to choose a datacenter?

To speed up the data transfer, you can choose the closest datacenter to you to store your versioned file data.

There are several datacenters around the world, so choosing the closest one to team will reduce the network latency and greatly improve data transfer.

Does Plastic Cloud provide a way to browse repositories online?

Not currently. You can use your Plastic SCM client to list repos, as you would do with a regular remote Plastic SCM server.

I'm a Community Edition user, can I use Plastic Cloud?

Yes, Community Edition users who qualify as open source projects and non-profit organizations can subscribe to Plastic Cloud and use their CE licenses to access the service.

I'm a Personal Edition user, can I use Plastic Cloud?

Yes, you can subscribe to Plastic Cloud while using your Personal Edition for free.

I have a Plastic SCM Trial License; can I use it to connect to Plastic Cloud?

Yes, the Trial License is a full-featured license and allows you to access Plastic Cloud. In fact, it's a great way to test the entire ecosystem before you buy since you have 30 days for free to use both products.

What happens if I cancel my subscription?

If you cancel your subscription, you will have a few days (typically one week) to retrieve all your data before we remove your organization to free up space. Upon cancellation, you will receive an email notifying you when the data will be finally erased.

November 23, 2020

• Now, you can edit the name of your organization.

September 24, 2020

• Now, you can also sign up to Cloud Edition by using your Unity ID .
• We simplified our Plastic SCM Cloud Edition Welcome wizard. Now, there are only two paths to start working with Plastic Cloud Edition: centralized or distributed .

September 21, 2020

• If you delete a repository by mistake, you will have up to two weeks to undelete it.

July 26, 2019

• Read how to list cloud repositories and how regular repositories compare with cloud repositories.

July 24, 2019

• You can now learn how to
  • Work centralized with Gluon
  • Work centralized with Plastic
  • Work distributed with Plastic

July 17, 2019

• Read how to Get started with Plastic Cloud Edition by working with Plastic or Gluon.

July 4, 2019

• Learn how to create a Plastic Cloud Edition organization.

June 26, 2019

• Welcome to the Plastic Cloud Edition guide!