Vault Overview
SourceGear Vault is a version control system built on SQL Server that provides both VSS style (Check Out, Edit, Check In) and CVS style (Edit, Merge, Commit) source control capabilities. Created by the makers of SourceOffSite, Vault is a compelling replacement for SourceSafe and other version control tools.
Advantages of Vault include:
Reliable
Vault's design places a strong emphasis on the integrity of the repository. The Vault repository is stored using Microsoft SQL Server 2000. Furthermore, Vault supports atomic check in transactions (change sets). When checking in a collection of files, the entire check in either succeeds or fails as an atomic unit.
Seamless transition from SourceSafe
A simple-to-use tool is provided to convert any SourceSafe database, including all history information, to Vault repositories.
Familiar features and interface
SourceSafe users will feel comfortable using Vault. The client user interface resembles that of SourceSafe and SourceOffSite – all major features of SourceSafe are present.
.NET Architecture
Vault is built entirely on Microsoft's .NET platform, including C#, ASP .NET and SQL Server 2000.
Open
The Vault server is built as a collection of .NET Web Services. The API provided by these services is fully available. Using the API documentation and commonly available tools, the Vault architecture allows clients to be created for any platform.
International
SourceSafe was created years before Unicode became the prevalent technology for I18N. Vault's design is thoroughly Unicode, largely because of its use of the .NET Framework. Vault is also localization-ready.
Concurrent Development
Vault's support for branching, automatic merging and multiple checkouts is superior to that of SourceSafe, even as the interface and paradigm are familiar to SourceSafe users.
History Explorer
The use of SQL Server as a repository storage allows Vault to easily provide more advanced ways of querying the history of a project.
