DigitalOcean deployment

You can deploy your Helix Core Server using DigitalOcean droplets.

For more information about DigitalOcean, see the What Is DigitalOcean? blog.

Deploying Helix Core

  1. If you do not have a DigitalOcean account, sign up for one.

  2. Sign in to your DigitalOcean account.

  3. Go to Perforce Helix Core in the DigitalOcean Marketplace.

  4. Click Create Perforce Helix Core Droplet.

  5. On the Helix Core deployment page, enter or select information for your Helix Core deployment.

    Field Values to enter or select
    Choose a plan Select a plan. The storage amount is only for metadata and logs. You will add a separate drive for your depot. You can change the plan to scale up or down anytime.
    Choose a datacenter region Select the region closest to your team, or one that meets your compliance and security needs.
    Authentication Select an existing SSH key or upload a new SSH key. Do not use a password for the root user.
    Choose a hostname Type a name for the droplet.
    Recommended: helix-core-<environment>
    Example: helix-core-production
    Add backups Do not select this option. Instead, follow the instructions displayed when you log in to your instance to create a separate depot volume and then set up automatic snapshots.

    The script for creating a separate depot value with automatic snapshots only exists in new versions of the DigitalOcean image. If you have an older deployment, you need to manually set up backups.

  6. Click Create Droplet.

    Deployment is complete when the blue progress bar disappears. Click the droplet name to go to the droplet details page. See Managing droplet settings - DigitalOcean deployment.

Updating firewall rules

Initial deployment of Helix Core on DigitalOcean does not include any firewall rules. Anyone with valid Helix Core credentials can connect to the Helix Core Server. For best practices to secure the Helix Core Server, see Updating firewall rules - DigitalOcean deployment.

Accessing the Helix Core Server

You can access the Helix Core Server in the following ways.

  • DigitalOcean Web Console or SSH: Provides direct server access to perform administrative tasks.
  • Helix Core Visual Client (P4V): Provides a cross-platform graphical user interface to check files in and out, compare versions, work with streams, and more on the Helix Core Server.
  • Helix Sync: Provides an easy way for artists, designers, and others who are not developers to upload and download assets stored and managed by a Helix Core Server.

Future considerations

To scale your virtual machine (VM) to be globally replicated, secure, compliant, and scalable, see the Perforce Enhanced Studio Pack (ESP) offerings.

The ESP offers pre-configured templates that include set smart defaults. It allows you to quickly set up your Helix Core environment and get up and running quickly on your cloud provider.

This DigitalOcean listing only includes a virtual machine image, in comparison to our ESP offerings on Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS). These offerings include infrastructure as code (ARM Template and Cloudformation respectively) and various VM images across our product suite. If you compare our best practices on Azure and on AWS, you will notice a big difference between the offering.