8 Expert Tips to Reduce Perforce Server Hosting Costs by Up to 90%

Yes, 90%.

That’s how much you could be overpaying for Perforce server hosting without even realizing it.

There’s no question that Perforce is the gold standard version control system in industries that manage large codebases and binary files: gaming, semiconductor design and automotive software, among others. 

However, it’s also not a secret that Perforce hosting costs can quickly add up. 

The expenses associated with Perforce server hosting go well beyond licensing fees. Between cloud storage, data transfer and compute resources, Perforce costs can quickly add up. Without optimized configurations and cost-saving strategies, teams may end up spending up to 90% more on cloud resources — unnecessarily.

But optimizing Perforce server hosting costs doesn’t mean cutting corners when it comes to performance. With the right strategies, it is possible to significantly reduce your Perforce hosting expenses while maintaining — or even improving — your system’s efficiency.

In this article, we’ll look closely at the factors that influence Perforce pricing, as well as cost-saving strategies.

Which factors drive up Perforce server hosting costs?

Before exploring Perforce cost-saving strategies, we need to review which factors influence your expenses. These are the biggest factors influencing Perforce server hosting costs if you’re using Perforce Helix Core on AWS, GCP, Azure or any other cloud provider: 

Storage 

Perforce repositories can grow rapidly, particularly in industries dealing with large binary files, such as gaming and film production. Since cloud providers charge for storage usage, as depots expand, so do costs. Without proactive management, unnecessary files and outdated assets can significantly inflate storage expenses.

Data transfer/bandwidth usage

Every time a developer pulls large files or synchronizes a workspace, data transfer fees come into play. Cloud providers like Azure, GCP or AWS charge for egress traffic — the volume of data leaving their servers. Therefore, frequent sync operations and inefficient workspace configurations can lead to unexpectedly high costs. In terms of bandwidth usage, the greatest ‘offenders’ are builds (pre-release versions), CI tools (such as Jenkins or TeamCity) and other automated software.

Compute resources 

Perforce relies on cloud instances to host primary servers, replicas, and proxies. The compute resources your organization requires depend mostly on the number of expected concurrent users, the frequency and volume of sync and commit operations, repository size, and the workload of automated processes like builds and integrations. Overprovisioning resources leads to wasted spending while underprovisioning can degrade performance, slowing down development workflows.

Redundancy and backup management

Maintaining data integrity is essential, but backup strategies directly impact cost because they require more storage. In fact, if you don’t optimize backup frequency and replica setups (replicating data from and to the master server), redundancy can easily amount to half of your Perforce cost. 

Strategies for optimizing Perforce cloud costs

Now that we have seen the factors that drive Perforce cloud costs, let’s see some strategies to improve them one by one, starting with storage.  

Perforce storage costs 

These strategies alone can help you save up to 90% on Perforce server hosting. 

Prune unnecessary files

The first step — and the most efficient — to reducing storage costs with Perforce is cleaning up. Delete unused branches, remove outdated files, and see if there are any unnecessary binary files that may be using a lot of storage. You only need to keep the last few revisions—what you consider safe enough if you need a rollback — in the main repository. Otherwise, older data is just occupying space and driving up costs. 

One of our customers, for example, had stored 120 revisions with an average size of 4GB. If you do the math, that’s 480GB of unnecessary storage usage. Once Assembla’s team identified this problem, we advised them to optimize their retention policies. As they eventually decided to keep only the last 7 to 10 revisions in the codebase, they saw a 90% reduction in storage costs. Obviously, this lowered their total Perforce server hosting costs without sacrificing performance. 

Archive rarely used files

Another strategy to free Perforce storage is transferring files that are rarely needed into an archive depot. Files in archive depots are preserved and can be restored. However, in the commit-edge environment, they are not replicated between the commit and the edge servers. To lower Perforce hosting costs even more, you can move them to lower-cost storage tiers (such as AWS S3 buckets, S3Proxy for Azure Cool Blob Storage or another S3-compatible API).

Data transfer and egress 

If you’re looking into Perforce cloud pricing, data transfer and egress make up a big part of your expenses. Luckily, proper Perforce setup and configuration can decrease your Perforce server hosting costs by up to 70%.

P4Proxy 

We often recommend setting up P4Proxy (P4P) for clients with a lot of egress. P4Proxy creates a local cache to access only the data you need. From then on, you’re accessing local data and not pulling from the master — you only pull the new data — which significantly reduces egress. If you compare a classic setup with Assembla’s optimized Perforce setup and configuration, paired with a P4P, you can save 70% on Perforce server hosting.  

This is especially true if your organization has office locations where multiple users can benefit from the cached files and/or if you have build servers. A P4P at a shared office greatly reduces bandwidth usage because multiple users are pulling from the same cached files, instead of synching directly from the central Perforce server. The same thing happens if you have build servers. Installing a P4Proxy on the same network as the build servers will reduce bandwidth and egress, apart from improving build times.

Edge replica

However, if your team doesn’t have shared offices, edge servers are a better solution. For example, if your team is working across different continents, replicas closer to your builds can distribute data more efficiently and cut down transfer times from the cloud. Our support team will look into replica servers with you to determine which locations will have the greatest cost/benefit for your organization. 

Compute resources

More than saving, it’s about choosing what’s right for you, your team and your workflow.  Here are our recommendations for paying just the right price for your compute resources:

Right-size cloud instances

Scaling cloud instances appropriately is crucial. Instead of running oversized instances at all times, organizations can analyze usage patterns to adjust resources to the number of concurrent users. According to AWS, that right-sizing alone can save up to 36%.

At a Assembla, we usually recommend the AWS EC2 M6i.large instance for teams with a moderate user count and repo size. Customers with bigger repos and many users are good candidates for AWS EC2 C6i.large instances. But don’t worry, because our team will be with you every step of the way to make these optimizations. 

Use edge servers for load distribution

We’ve already seen how edge replicas can improve performance, user experience, and reduce Perforce costs with egress. Depending on your team’s setup, this can also reduce the need for oversized cloud instances, which reduces expenses with compute resources. Besides, reducing the load on the primary server can prevent performance bottlenecks that requite hardware upgrades. Although the savings may be minimal — it really depends on your team’s setup, needs, and locations — it’s definitely something worth exploring.

Replication and backups 

Finally, let’s see how replication and backups can reduce costs while ensuring Perforce data security, backup, and disaster recovery.

Optimize replication and backup practices

Instead of replicating all data indiscriminately, use replica filters for edge-to-edge replication. This ensures that only necessary data is synced, reducing storage and compute costs. Otherwise, you’ll pay for extra storage and use up compute resources to keep redundant data on build servers and forwarding replicas. 

Incremental backups vs full backups

Frequent full backups consume large amounts of storage. Instead, incremental backups only copy modified data since the last backup — which, according to AWS, can reduce storage needs by 40%. However, at Assembla, hourly incremental snapshot backups are already included, so it doesn’t affect your Perforce pricing. 

Another approach is to use rsync over SSH to update remote backups without creating redundant copies. Plus, AWS EBS snapshots are point-in-time, incremental backups by default, making them an efficient way to manage backup storage as well. 

Extra tip: Monitor Perforce cloud expenses 

Remember that keeping Perforce cloud expenses under control requires real-time visibility. Tools like AWS Cost Explorer or Azure Cost Analysis help track storage, cloud instances, and bandwidth usage. This way, you can quickly figure out what’s contributing the most to your Perforce cloud expenses. 

If you’re using these tools, you can also set up alerts for unexpected cost spikes. The alerts allow you to investigate what’s happening right away and take action. Plus, regular audits help identify underutilized resources, allowing teams to make informed decisions on resource allocation.

Beware of underutilized but costly resources (i.e, idle instances and excessive storage), hidden cloud expenses (mostly due to misconfigured backups or excessive data transfers), as well as high maintenance overhead.

Why Assembla is the Best Choice for Perforce Cloud Hosting 

With so many details and configurations to take care of, there’s no doubt self-managed Perforce cloud hosting is challenging. For one, it’s certainly not a one-time thing — but rather an ongoing task, something that requires constant monitoring, fine-tuning, and expertise. Are you able to have a Perforce admin or DevOps engineer dedicated to managing it around the clock?

Maybe not, but that’s why we’re here. As an official Perforce partner, Assembla offers a fully managed Perforce hosting solution that optimizes performance and reduces costs. Our team does all the Perforce setup and configuration, as well as maintenance. As such, you can avoid inefficient data replication, excessive storage consumption and the high operational costs that come with them. 

Many companies have already reduced their Perforce hosting costs by switching to Assembla. Take Two Point Studios, famous for games such as “Two Point Hospital”, “Two Point Campus” and “Two Point Museum”, for example. The studio saves £30.000 a year with Assembla (almost $38.000). According to Ben Hymers, co-founder and CTO, “using Assembla has proven to be cheaper than adding a salary to our payroll”. 

What to expect from Assembla’s Managed Perforce Hosting Solution

Choosing Assembla’s managed Perforce hosting solution isn’t just about cutting costs. It also ensures higher availability, optimized performance, and expert support. 

• Perforce dedicated server: our managed Perforce hosting solution is single-tenant, so we can customize the environment for you; 
• Optimized resource allocation: we tailor storage and compute resources to prevent unnecessary costs and optimized performance; 
• Efficient backup management: incremental backups (snapshots) reduce storage needs without compromising integrity; 
• Decrease egress and transfer costs: our pre-configured cloud environments reduce egress and data transfers;
• Continuous performance monitoring: auditing and proactive Perforce server performance optimization to improve performance and lower costs (our in-house team checks if you’re a good candidate for all the strategies we mentioned so far); 
• Expert DevOps support: hassle-free setup, maintenance and expert support;
• Security and compliance: Assembla is SOC 2 certified and fully compliant with US and EU regulations;
• Assembla platform: access to Assembla’s source code and collaboration platform; 
• Seamless integrations: Helix Core works well with external tools like Unreal Engine, Unity, Slack and Jira, which our team can help you configure; 
• Exclusive cost savings: we have bulk cloud hosting agreements, which are passed on directly to our clients;
• Bring your own license: Helix Core Perforce licenses are available on all our plans for 39$. However, you can also bring your own license. 

The takeaway

Perforce is a powerful version control system, but its cloud hosting costs can spiral if left unchecked. By understanding the key Perforce server hosting cost drivers — storage, compute, bandwidth, and redundancy — DevOps teams can implement several strategies to decrease Perforce costs without compromising performance.

Of course, having the right Perforce setup and configuration is also critical to reducing storage and egress costs. That’s where Assembla comes in. Our Managed Perforce Hosting solution eliminates overhead, cuts infrastructure costs, and optimizes performance. Your talented team is free to focus on what they do best: building and creating the next successful release. 

Get a quote for Perforce hosting

Are you currently hosting Perforce in the cloud? 

Assembla offers Managed Hosting for Perforce that allows you to bring your own license over to Assembla and get access to our fully optimized, cost-efficient Perforce cloud setup. 

✓ Reduce costs with an optimized cloud setup 

✓ Fully managed and supported by Perforce experts

✓ Bring your own Perforce license or get yours with Assembla