Book Image

Visual SourceSafe 2005 Software Configuration Management in Practice

Book Image

Visual SourceSafe 2005 Software Configuration Management in Practice

Overview of this book

Why is Software Configuration Management important?Software Configuration Management (SCM) is the discipline of managing the building and modification of software through techniques including source-code control, revision control, object-build tracking, and release construction. SCM involves identifying the configuration of the software at given points in time, systematically controlling changes to the configuration, and maintaining the integrity and traceability of the configuration throughout the software development lifecycle.Software Configuration Management is one of the first skills a serious developer should master, after becoming proficient with his or her development tools of choice. Unfortunately, this does not always happen because the subject of SCM is not commonly taught in either academic or company training.When developing software, you need to have a manageable team development effort, track and maintain the history of your projects, sustain parallel development on multiple product versions, fix bugs, and release service packs while further developing the application. This is where the concepts of Software Configuration Management come into play; SCM is about getting the job done safer, faster, and better.Visual SourceSafe has a long history behind it. The previous versions were either loved for their ease of use and integration with other Microsoft products, or hated because the headaches caused by using them improperly. This book will help you to avoid such problems.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Visual SourceSafe 2005 Software Configuration Management in Practice
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Preface

Network Configurations


Considering their location, client machines can be local or remote. Local clients are those that can access the server using a Local Area Network (LAN). This is the local development site where the server resides and from where the majority of the work is accomplished.

Sometimes, however, there are situations in which users need to connect from remote locations. Maybe they work from home or are in a different location and need to make a change to the database.

Local users can access the SourceSafe server directly through the LAN connection, while remote users can reach it through the XML Web service, or through a Virtual Private Network.

Accessing the Server using the LAN Connection

At the local development site the clients use the LAN access configuration to access the Visual SourceSafe server database. The following figure illustrates this network configuration:

In the LAN access configuration, the LAN booster service is used to increase the file access speeds in...