Graduating from microsoft visual sourcesafe to ... - PVCS - Synergex

GRADUATING FROM MICROSOFT ®
VISUAL SOURCESAFE TO MERANT ®
SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION
MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS

G R A D U ATING FROM MICROSOFT ® VISUAL SOURCESAFE TO MERANT ® S C M
Abstract
Microsoft Visual SourceSafe is a common starting point for basic version control. Visual
SourceSafe has the advantage of being free since it comes bundled with Microsoft development
environments. However, Visual SourceSafe is limited in scalability, platform
compatibility and data reliability. This means that as teams and projects grow in size
and complexity, the capabilities of Visual SourceSafe are outgrown.
This paper discusses the rationale and potential long-term ROI for moving from a free built-in
versioning tool to a Merant software configuration management (SCM) system. The focus is
on the advantages of Merant’s PVCS Version Manager, the most common entry level for
development teams moving to a Merant solution. Merant Services also provides a Conversion
Utility and service that migrates Visual SourceSafe file into PVCS Version Manager archives,
as well as into PVCS Dimensions, Merant’s enterprise SCM product.
In brief, investing in Merant SCM ultimately reduces time, rework, errors and costs involved
in working around SourceSafe limitation. Merant tools, unlike Visual SourceSafe, support
a broad range of platforms and IDEs, are scalable across the enterprise, and provide data
i n t e g r i t y, database robustness and asset security not possible with Visual SourceSafe alone.
©2002 Merant. All rights re s e rved. PVCS and Merant are re g i s t e red trademarks
of Merant. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 07/02
WP02PRO237

G R A D U ATING FROM MICROSOFT ® VISUAL SOURCESAFE TO MERANT ® S C M
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C O N T E N T S
Why Move from a Free Tool?...................................................1
The Costs of “Free” SCM.........................................................................1
Daily Pain is Another Hidden Cost........................................................... 1
Merant Provides Scalable SCM................................................................ 2
Business ROI with Merant....................................................... 3
Shorter Development Schedules and Reduced Costs................................ 3
Support for Distributed and Remote Development....................................3
Higher Application Quality.......................................................................3
Track Project Status with Comprehensive Reporting..................................4
Auditability and Accountability.................................................................4
Scenarios Where Merant Makes a Difference..........................4
PVCS Version Manager Makes
Life Easier for Developers and Managers................................ 6
Improved Focus and Enhanced Productivity..............................................6
Clearer Understanding of Product and Project..........................................7
Enhanced Predictability............................................................................7
Better Control of Projects.........................................................................8
Flexibility................................................................................................11
Why Merant?.........................................................................13
Summary...............................................................................14
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Why Move from a Free Tool?
Many organizations use Microsoft’s Visual SourceSafe to protect code and to version
development files. Visual SourceSafe has the advantage of being bundled with Microsoft
development tools, and it is a great way to begin imposing basic versioning, immediately.
H o w e v e r, if development projects grow or become more complex, and or if teams advance
to distributed or parallel development, Visual SourceSafe by itself may not be enough.
Visual SourceSafe is not scalable, robust enough nor full featured to meet these more
complex, enterprise strength needs. When development needs grow, PVCS Professional
provides the next level. And, PVCS products can co-exist with Visual SourceSafe, so
there is no need to choose between one or the other — smaller teams or dedicated
Visual Studio teams can continue to use Visual SourceSafe.
In the short run Visual SourceSafe saves the purchase cost of an SCM toolset, but
long term costs include adding risk and limiting capacity engineering maturity, if Vi s u a l
SourceSafe is expected to fulfill all of the organization’s SCM needs.
The Costs of “Free” SCM
Customers have told Merant that it’s easy to quickly outgrow Visual SourceSafe. Teams
with growing projects and complexity may have problems pulling a build, and are never
exactly certain of what is in the build. They tell us data is lost or corrupted, and that they
have to create new databases when projects grow and then struggle to coordinate across
teams and project databases. They tell us they have created workarounds using Excel and
Word documents to capture sequential coding activity and distributed contributions.
Such workarounds can actually end up costing more — in time, in errors, in lost
productivity and reliance on manual methods that could be handled automatically.
Daily Pain is Another Hidden Cost
Development resources are among the most valuable in any enterprise. Even if you
avoid purchasing a full-featured SCM toolset, you still have the hidden costs resulting
from developers who are not being helped to do their best. Instead of focusing on
quality development, they can lose productivity if they have to juggle spreadsheets and
Word documents and never-ending emails to fix what should have been automated
from the start. You may not have paid out any money, but you have paid in terms of
lost productivity, rework and developer frustration.
Here are some common “pains” when Visual SourceSafe is stretched in complex team
development situations for which it was never intended:
Crunch time. It’s time to turn a build over to testing, and the test will run overnight.
But the SourceSafe archive freezes. With no one there to figure out the problem,
precious time is lost. And more time is wasted as teams are forced to deal with testing
during the next day’s business hours.
Who’s doing what, when? Developers continue to change code, but are unaware of
where it is in the lifecycle. Is it in testing? Production? Release? Which versioned files
go with which build, which release?
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Re-inventing the wheel. Unintentional code overwrites occur, and untested changes
make it into releases. Teams are forced to recreate code, or scramble to restore releases
when unexpected bugs arise in a release due to untested changes.
Hide and seek. Who fixed which bug, and where is the correct file for the next build?
You can never be sure you’ve got all the correct files, bug fixes and updates for compiling
your next build and release.
Microsoft Visual SourceSafe does not provide the scalability, the cross-platform
integration nor the robust capabilities that are mandatory in enterprise development
environments. It cannot automate defect reports, link to development files nor
automatically capture and track change status to resolution. It cannot generate
an enterprise-wide audit trail of not only file changes, but also of checkpoints and
approvals within a standardized, repeatable process.
“By using PVCS Professional, we have boosted our quality by 75 percent. As a result, the applications we have
deployed have differentiated our business in our industry and our sales have dramatically increased.”
— Tim Talbot, Vice President, Information Technology Services, PHH Arval
And because it is meant for small teams and simple projects, Visual SourceSafe’s data
integrity becomes questionable as teams and projects scale. It does not support projects
over 1GB. And the problem of file corruption in expanding projects is well documented
— even by Microsoft!
M o r e o v e r, code reuse and efficient parallel development — hallmarks of the agile development
organization — become risky business without something more robust than
Visual SourceSafe to organize, protect and manage revisions and ensure integrity of
the SCM archives.
F i n a l l y, SourceSafe does not support non-Microsoft platforms or development environments
(IDEs). Yet many of today’s enterprises are heterogeneous, encompassing
mainframe, client/server and web development, across multiple OS, server and
workstation platforms.
Merant Provides Scalable SCM
Visual SourceSafe is a free tool that is bundled with Microsoft’s Visual Studio. It is
platform dependent and is not a core development focus for Microsoft. In contrast,
Merant products for SCM are platform independent, flexible, scalable, secure and
robust, and Merant continually enhances them. Customers cannot outgrow Merant
the way they could outgrow Visual SourceSafe.
For our customers, Merant’s PVCS Version Manager is a typical entry point into our
SCM family of products. But from there, customers can deploy additional tools, in
stages, so that they can allocate resources at will and continue to concentrate on
finishing existing projects.
The broad coverage and scalability of its products enables Merant to match virtually
any level of SCM a company may prefer. There is no need to change vendors as SCM
needs change or development teams evolve, because Merant offers solutions across
the spectrum.
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Business ROI with Merant
Beginning with implementation of PVCS Version Manager, your teams will produce
higher quality software, faster. Changes and revisions can be taken in stride and integrated
with fewer errors. Developers can reuse more components and access distributed
assets. They safely engage in time-saving concurrent and remote development. PVCS
Version Manager is the foundation for an effective SCM infrastructure, and can be integrated
with other products in the Merant family, including tools for change and issue
management, process management, code and content management and deployment for
web teams, and more. Depending on the scope of SCM investment you choose, the
ROI you can expect from Merant SCM include the following:
Shorter Development Schedules and Reduced Costs
• Software assets (code, documentation, tests, etc.) are protected from accidental
loss and unintentional overwrites
• Software builds are automated
• The next release can be developed while simultaneously maintaining current release
• Code reuse and component engineering are increased, resulting in more development
productivity and less rework
Support for Distributed and Remote Development
• Development resources, wherever they are located, regardless of platform,
can access PVCS Version Manager via browser access
• Your SCM archives and disciplines can now scale to match any size team,
from one to thousands
• A single archive keeps all data secure and uncorrupted — no need to split
projects across databases if you don’t want to
• The entire team can use the same SCM tool and the same data repository—no
need to create manual workarounds with spreadsheets and status documents.
Higher Application Quality
• Many Change Control Board tasks are automated so required tasks cannot be lost
• Wo r k f l o w, promotion levels and status benchmarks are managed and communicated
automatically
• Defect information is automatically captured and tracked the first time
around — fewer missed fixes, less rework and retesting
• Version control and baseline/release management enable roll back to “good”
versions when a production problem is encountered
• Automate processes to reduce human error and ensure that steps are not skipped
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• Eliminate unauthorized changes
• Optimize scheduling and increase product auditability
Track Project Status with Comprehensive Reporting
• Perform analysis to determine the impact, effort and cost of proposed changes
before they are undertaken
• Gather and analyze metrics to help improve your development processes
Auditability and Accountability
• Automate the paper trail to record who changed what, when and why
• Define, track and navigate relationships between items (functional spec, design
spec, source code, object code, executable, tests, test results, change request,
engineering change order, etc.)
Scenarios Where Merant Makes a Difference
In addition to the ROI benefits discussed above, developers who actually work with
the application will appreciate how PVCS Version Manager protects their progress and
frees them from mundane manual tasks. PVCS Version Manager is better for team
development in several common kinds of projects:
Enhancement Pr o j e c t s . Your teams may spend as much time enhancing existing
applications as they expend writing new ones. Such projects are an example of
complicated change management. While the code requiring modification is being
checked and fixed, there is usually ongoing standard maintenance occurring to the
base code. This creates a classic need for parallel development, which involves two
separate paths of coding, one to accomplish the enhancement, and the other for
ongoing maintenance to the baseline. Visual SourceSafe has difficulty with this
because it needs to force a completely new project whenever you need to branch
an existing file, whereas PVCS Version Manager does not. Visual SourceSafe is
also prone to data corruption as project data grows.
Core Development Pr o j e c t s . Distributed development projects typically have separate
front/back end components under development simultaneously. This means such projects
need both a strong source code management tool and change request management. The
PVCS Professional suite integrates version control (PVCS Version Manager component)
and change management (PVCS Tracker component) to capture and organize development
issues, while associating the issues with the appropriate development files for
update. PVCS Professional also includes PVCS Configuration Builder to automate
and speed new builds. Visual SourceSafe has no such capabilities. Additional tools
would have to be purchased for issue tracking and builds, tools which may or may
not integrate with Visual SourceSafe.
Cross Platform/Heterogeneous Projects. With Visual SourceSafe, you must work in
Windows. In contrast, PVCS Version Manager provides heterogeneous support and inte-
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grates with PVCS Dimensions for enterprise SCM and Merant Collage for web
content management.
Projects Involving Multiple Development Tool Environments. Just as enterprise
development may involve multiple platforms, it can also involve multiple development
t o o l s . Visual SourceSafe cannot support non-Visual Studio development tools. In contrast,
PVCS Version Manager can support Visual Studio and Po w e r b u i l d e r, ColdFusion,
Rational Rose, Web Sphere, WSAD and others.
Projects That Must Adhere to Standards and Certifications. Companies that
have business mandates to meet quality standards and certifications need more than
source code protection. Visual SourceSafe was never intended to provide the level of
process control and repeatability needed for such standards — yet these standards are
becoming more and more essential for staying competitive.
To meet these standards, version control, issue management, build/release management
and process enforcement all need to be managed together. Visual SourceSafe
does not provide these capabilities, and never was intended to do so. But Merant
SCM solutions do, along with the ability for a company to grow their capabilities
as their needs change.
“With PVCS Version Manager, we now have visibility and reportability into the projects. Software is a really valuable
resource — it’s part of the company’s assets. We need to know where the projects are at any time and be able to
obtain statistics about our productivity and then be able to communicate this. Using PVCS Version Manager is the
p e rfect tool for this.”
— Brian Lai, Software R&D Manager, ASM Pacific Technology
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PVCS Version Manager Makes Life Easier for Developers and Managers
On a day-to-day basis, developers want to avoid distractions and extraneous tasks
that reduce productivity. Managers want to know and understand the overall status
of a project, especially as the business mounts larger and larger projects to enable its
own growth. Visual SourceSafe can never provide this kind of large-project control
nor team interaction. But PVCS Version Manager can.
Improved Focus and Enhanced Productivity
Nested folders, drag-and-drop and right-mouse context menus within a graphical user
interface make it easy for PVCS Version Manager users to manage project version files
with the same intuitive simplicity as navigating Windows. When SCM becomes a natural
and easy part of daily work, productivity and accuracy rise.
An intuitive GUI based on standard Windows Explorer navigation and folder concepts offers enhanced usability .
The developer does not need to toggle in and out of version management tool, IDE
and issue reporting tool. Development files, issue tracking and version management are
available from within the native interface or the preferred development environment.
Users are able to view the defect database while working inside of PVCS Ve r s i o n
Manager or while working in their preferred IDE — PVCS Version Manager integrates
with virtually any SCC-compliant IDE. Visual SourceSafe does not offer this kind of
flexibility or integration.
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Clearer Understanding of Product and Project
The integration of version management, issue tracking and automated builds within
PVCS Professional enables an audit trail from defect to change to code to build. This is
simply not possible with Visual SourceSafe alone. Traceability down to the file level, and
back up to builds, gives developers better knowledge of what’s going on in a software
product. Plus, anyone can run real-time reports of status and project dynamics. There is
no need to toggle in and out of screens or manually re-enter data into reporting tools.
With PVCS Professional, the correct information is always linked and reportable, in any
number of formats and query structures.
PVCS Professional includes both PVCS Version Manager and PVCS Tracker, and these are integrated via PVCS
TrackerLink. As a result, users can access the issue management database from within the version management
interface. No need to toggle in and out of screens.
Integration helps save time. Developers can query for new issues first to find out their
daily priorities. After working on the appropriate source code modules, they can then
associate them to one or more of the reported issues in the database. Users can also
submit new issues such as change requests or update current items in the database.
By providing this integration, PVCS Professional enables users to work in one environment
for both their source control and issue tracking activities, and to seamlessly relate
change requests to development files and versions. SCM moves into the background
and becomes a natural, integrated part of development practice.
Enhanced Predictability
I t ’s not uncommon for teams with inadequate SCM to pad schedules because they know
how much can go wrong unexpectedly. Unrealistic schedules are bad for business — h o w
can you really determine development costs and know when your product will be
ready? — plus it places a lot of strain on individual developers, who aren’t really sure
what’s expected of them.
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PVCS Version Manager has an advantage over Visual SourceSafe, even in Microsoft’s
own development environments, because of its superior integration into Visual Basic
and Visual C++, which in turn enables vastly superior differencing and more accurate
reporting than possible with Visual SourceSafe. For example, compared with Vi s u a l
SourceSafe, PVCS Version Manager enables:
• Advanced Check In/Out by date/revision number and promotion group
• Advanced Visual Differencing capabilities which SourceSafe does not offer
• Advanced Archive Reporting
Also, because of the high degree of integration and automation between PVCS Version
Manager and other SCM components in the full PVCS Professional suite, many manual
tasks can be eliminated. Eliminating manual updating, automatically associating
files with defect reports, and automated team coordination dramatically shorten
the development cycle and reduce the number of errors introduced along the way.
Schedules become more realistic, business managers know what to expect and when,
and customers are more satisfied.
Better Control of Projects
Team development cannot be fully effective unless you can organize and manage your
process. Merant SCM solutions do enable process management. In PVCS Ve r s i o n
M a n a g e r, for example, promotion models can be defined. In essence, promotion models
ensure the controlled movement of software through stages of development in its lifecycle.
Visual SourceSafe cannot create and manage promotion models, nor branch and merge
development threads across parallel teams, nor set automatic event triggers. Instead,
manual intervention is required, and with manual intervention comes a greater chance
of error, longer development times and time wasted on non-development tasks.
Illustrates a promotion model being set up in PVCS Version Manager .
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Promotion Models
PVCS Version Manager solves the promotion model dilemma of SourceSafe. You can
set up milestones to reflect the various lifecycles your software may pass through. For
example, after the first baseline is created you may want to lock the associated code and
start testing it.
You would “promote” the baselined code (all revisions) to a milestone level entitled
“QA_Test1.”
You can restrict a user’s actions at specific points in the promotion model. For example,
you may restrict a user’s actions such that they are not allowed to add labels, promote a
file or delete files from “QA_Test1.” Visual SourceSafe does not offer the option to set
this type of protection or restriction to user actions, based on the promotion level — t h e
milestone — the code has attained.
The Version Manager promotion system is based on a logical association between a revision
of a file and a stage in the development cycle. These stages represent processes
that normally occur in the development of a software application, such as development,
testing, and production. There is no need to keep separate copies of files in different
locations. Visual SourceSafe does not offer this type of functionality.
Branching and Merging
Being able to create separate threads of development — a c c u r a t e l y, automatically
and without file corruption — is key to enabling parallel development. Parallel development,
in turn, is mandatory for managing large development projects with any hope
of achieving a competitive time to market.
The limited capability of Visual SourceSafe in these areas can lead to lengthy development
schedules, which in turn can cause dissatisfied customers, features falling
behind those of competitors, loss of revenue, escalating project costs, project backlog
and developer frustration.
Archive File
Trunk
1.4
1.3
1.2
Merge
1.1.1.1
1.1.1.0
Branch
1.1
1.0
Revision
PVCS Version Manager supports branching and merging of files to enable parallel development. There is no need
to create separate project folders when branching files.
But with PVCS Version Manager, users can branch their development so they can create
a special release if they need to, and can later merge these changes with the original
development path to create the next main release. Teams can make multiple enhancements
in parallel without corrupting files or creating new, separate project databases.
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PVCS Version Manager displays branch/merge differences graphically in color, so users
can easily see differences between files and can resolve conflicts quickly. This moves
development forward without a lot of wasted time. Users can also automatically merge
parallel threads if code changes do not conflict, again saving time and risk of error. In
PVCS Dimensions, parallel development is also supported, with the added aspect of
workflow management and process definition, including replication of archives across
distributed sites.
With Visual SourceSafe you cannot do any of this. If you want to create a branch in a
development file, you are forced to branch it into another separate project. The chances
for data corruption and manual error increase, plus development time lengthens. A n d ,
you end up creating unnecessary “projects” to manage and merge, when all you really
want to do is create separate threads within the same file, so various contributors can
safely work concurrently.
Visual differencing and n-way merge tools in PVCS Ve r s i o nManager enable developers to quickly see code
changes, correct any conflicts and merge changes back into the main line of development. When there are
no conflicts, branched threads can be merged automatically.
Event Triggers
With PVCS Version Manager, you have the ability to set up more than 17 different
event triggers or launch programs when a certain event occurs. Event triggers save
d e v e lopment time because they automate many functions that would otherwise have
to be handled manually.
“I recommend Merant PVCS Professional to organizations which seek to better manage changes in their development
environments in view of accelerating and increasing the competitiveness of their businesses.”
— Larry Kinder, Executive Vice President and CIO of Cendant
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Flexibility
Any SCM solution should preserve the technology investment already made. If
developers have to learn a new IDE or toggle in and out of multiple interfaces,
tools and archives, productivity is lost.
Integration with Non-Microsoft Tools
PVCS Version Manager integrates with best-of-breed tools for requirements management,
software modeling and testing, and web development environments, as well as
with many IDEs.
Web browser access to core PVCS Version Manager functions extends SCM to remote developers and distributed
teams without requiring third-party TCP/IP or NFS software.
Remote Development Made Easy
If your development resources are spread out over many different locations, Vi s u a l
SourceSafe does not offer a fast, integrated TCP/IP based connection to your central
r e p o s i t o r y. You end up losing part of your personnel investment in offshore developers,
remote sites, telecommuting team members and other distributed contributors. In contrast,
PVCS Version Manager provides secure, rapid web-based access to your source
files from anywhere in the world.
Collaboration Across a Heterogeneous Organization
Not being able to use a single SCM solution across the enterprise may make it impossible
for all teams to collaborate or share project tasks. Or they may end up having an
inconsistent baseline and release process. Meanwhile, management is unlikely to get
accurate status reports when development is managed by disparate systems. These
limitations will hinder the success of large, complex projects. And if large projects
cannot be supported, the entire business may fail to grow because of it.
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Microsoft does not provide native UNIX support for Visual SourceSafe; it must be
obtained from a 3rd party company that has their own development staff. Releases are
not necessarily in sync and functionality will differ from release to release. In contrast,
PVCS Version Manager directly supports Linux, HP-UX, AIX and Sun Solaris. Through
our partnership with Synergex, Merant is also able to support additional UNIX operating
systems such as SCO and Irix.
As a result, with PVCS Version Manager you are:
• Dealing with one vendor, not a complexity of 3rd party relationships.
• Assuring common look and feel to SCM products for all platforms.
• Equally supporting all of your heterogeneous teams.
And if you choose to migrate to PVCS Dimensions, the Merant enterprise SCM t o o l s e t ,
you can also support your OS/390 platform teams. For web developers, Merant Collage
offers an open, Java based solution for managing web content and deploying code from
PVCS Version Manager and PVCS Dimensions jointly with Merant Collage-managed
content. Thus, with a Merant solution, you can support all your team developers, from
the mainframe to the web.
PVCS Version Manager enables advanced security based on options for assigning rights and privileges and for
associating security with promotion levels.
Security
Security in PVCS Version Manager is more extensive and configurable than in Visual
SourceSafe. You can set up different user groups and restrict those groups from performing
specific functionality in the product, down to the file level. Visual SourceSafe
is limited to four levels of security with very few options. Having a strong security model
allows you to be flexible in assigning rights/privileges, without risking protection. And,
being able to combine security with promotion levels creates a powerful access model.
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Scalability
Without it, enterprises have no investment protection. As needs of an organization
change and grow — which they all do — they will not be able to meet demand.
Again, the consequences are dissatisfied customers and revenue opportunities lost to
competitors. Visual SourceSafe does not scale well. Thus, if you have not standardized
on a robust enterprise SCM platform, you could end up having to throw out
Visual SourceSafe, and all developers will need to be retrained — again you are
looking at lost productivity, plus training costs that impact the bottom line.
Data Integrity
Visual SourceSafe has documented problems with data integrity as projects grow. The
data integrity/scalability issue is related to how Visual SourceSafe and PVCS Ve r s i o n
Manager approach storing data archives (revisions and associated information). PVCS
Version Manager uses the network file system on either Windows or UNIX and takes
advantage of the infinite scalability of those environments. On the other hand, Vi s u a l
SourceSafe relies on a database concept (Microsoft Access) and has difficulty handling
large amounts of data. Many users report that they continually have to split up their
databases to make smaller ones and also must consistently run database utilities to
keep their data from corruption.
Growth Path
Microsoft does not offer anything more robust than Visual SourceSafe for managing
development. In contrast, one of Merant’s core expertise and technical focus is SCM.
As a result, Merant offers a complete line of SCM tools as your needs grow.
Why Merant?
Visual SourceSafe is not a development focus for Microsoft. If an enterprise, or even
a single team, wants a best-of-breed solution for software configuration management,
they need a vendor with core expertise and a history of success in this area.
Particularly as SCM has become crucial to the success of development and the business
bottom line, many growing development organizations have opted to switch from
Visual SourceSafe and work with an established veteran in the SCM business: Merant.
Our customers tell us they are investing in Merant solutions for several reasons:
Core competency. All of our R&D, support and service resources are centered on
managing software and digital asset development. We have more than 25 years of
experience implementing SCM at customer sites worldwide.
S u p p o r t . Many users who have moved to Merant from Visual SourceSafe have done so
because of the support. Merant SupportNet provides a comprehensive support program
including 24/7 access to technicians and information via Answerline, Knowledgebase and
User Communities on a dedicated support website. Merant SupportNet is an award-winning
service, and took the 2002 award for Exemplary Customer Service and Satisfaction
in the Omega NorthFace ScoreBoard Award.
Pr o d u c t s . Customers who need end-to-end change management do not want to be
burdened with implementing products from multiple vendors. They need a comprehensive
and integrated product line that covers the full range of SCM disciplines.
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And the solution must be able to manage all kinds of assets, on multiple platforms.
Microsoft Visual SourceSafe offers none of these capabilities, nor does it include a
migration path to products that do.
Growth Pa t h . Customers whose development tasks have grown in scope and complexity
simply require more functionality, scalability and flexibility than Visual SourceSafe can
hope to offer. You can confidently plan growth strategy for maturing SCM capability
without changing your systems to accommodate a new vendor for each added capability.
We have developed a utility which enables us to help customers migrate Visual SourceSafe
files to PVCS Version Manager archives. Once archives are converted to Version Manager,
the growth path to other PVCS products and capabilities is wide open.
Single-vendor benefits. The advantages of using a single vendor include reduced support
and administration burden, because you don’t have to manage multiple support contracts
or train users and IT on multiple systems. Innovative delivery options, such as purchasing
hosted application services (including behind your firewall), can get SCM up and running
quickly when your capital budgets are constrained. Plus you save internal IT costs when
you receive administrative support via hosted services.
Summary
SCM is essential to organizations that rely on software excellence. Without it, organizations
often experience unintentional code overwrites, unnecessary rework, confusion
about team roles and task status, poor time-to-market, canceled software projects and
lost features.
Companies who deploy a sound enterprise SCM system based on Merant solutions
have a competitive advantage over companies who choose to remain with Vi s u a l
SourceSafe or other “entry level” tools for version control. Merant SCM, beginning
with the foundation of PVCS Version Manager, is the superior choice because, unlike
Visual SourceSafe, it provides:
• Flexibility within a single product family, one that offers ease-of-use and powerful
features for more advanced teams as well as small teams
• Scalability through a robust architecture and a migration path from version
management to full-featured SCM, process-centric configuration management
and management of web content.
• The expertise of a dedicated SCM vendor offering world-class support and services
When you combine the PVCS Professional product line with Merant’s professional
services organization and our industry partnerships (Mercury Interactive, Oracle,
Telelogic and many more), you have the best SCM solution available today.
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M E R A N T

G R A D U ATING FROM MICROSOFT ® VISUAL SOURCESAFE TO MERANT ® S C M
Notes
M E R A N T

G R A D U ATING FROM MICROSOFT ® VISUAL SOURCESAFE TO MERANT ® S C M
Notes
M E R A N T

Merant is a global leader in software solutions that
manage and transform digital assets for business
advantage. Merant expertise derives from more
than 25 years in enterprise application development,
software configuration management, and best practices
for enabling asset evolution and performance.
Customers at more than 30,000 sites worldwide
rely on Merant to protect, trace and reuse enterprise
software and content. For additional information,
visit www.merant.com.
800 547 7827
www.merant.com
info@merant.com
MERANT WORLDWIDE
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Also available through authorized resellers.
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