Branch mastership

Branch mastership is the scheme that supports independent development work at different VOB replicas. Every branch type defined in a VOB (including the main branch type) has a master replica.

Mastership restrictions allow you to create a branch only if its creation will not conflict with an attempt to create a branch of that type at the replica that masters the type:

Note: Remember that a branch is an instance of a branch type. For example, main is a branch type, and acc.c@@/main and resource.h@@\main are branches.

The branch mastership strategy works by using branches to isolate changes for particular development tasks. (For example, fixing a defect may require changes to five elements, in which each change is made on a branch of type v1.0_bugfix.) With DevOps Code ClearCase® MultiSite, work on various tasks can be done at different replicas, each using its own branch type. The work on different branches can be propagated among replicas, and then merged, as often as required by an organization's development strategy. Because the branches of an element are independent, changes made at different replicas do not conflict.

Branch mastership is implemented at both the branch type level and the branch level: