Eval the Product & Looking for help to win over my boss

[Ocean10000]

Hello

This is the first time I am on this forum. I am looking at this product to replace VSS. I have tested it at home using my personal projects as my first test. Importing my VSS went smooth and I have had no problems as of yet with the product with the way I use it. But now the tricky part is explaining the Pro's & Con's of this product against VSS to my Boss.

My boss will ask me a few questions.
Why upgrade in the first place? And why not just buy the new version of VSS from MS? What will the cost difference be with SoureGear vs VSS?

I have never been very good at getting my point across. So that is the whole why I am writing to this forum.

Here is what I have so far, I know I am probably missing some big items but for the life of me I can't pin them down yet. So I am asking for some help.

VSS
1. Is it no longer comes with our MSDN Subscription.
2. In Multi developers environments can corrupt the VSS db easy.
3. Webservice requires the VSS be on the same server (for the new version).
4. On the old version we have to use a VPN to gain access to the VSS when working remotely.
4. Small check in Comments (I prefer to write books on who/what/when/why in the check in comments for later reference) (I think it is currently 50 Characters Max)


SourceGear
1. Uses MS SQL for the data store, so backup's of data does not require new tools to be implemented.
2. Supports MS SQL 2000 & 2005.
2. Publicly documented Webservice API.
3. Written completely in a Dot.net Compatible Language (C#)
4. Webservice can be on a different server then the Database.
5. Transactions failover, a transaction completes or it doesn't.
6. Check in comments can be much bigger (how big is the question?)
7. Support for 3rd party Issue Tracking Built in, (Bug Tracking)
8. Better offline Support for editing files and merging them back.
9. Easier remote access does not require VPN’s to be running to work if the webservice s put on a public facing site (using SSL to secure it).
10. Possibility to of generating reports on the history of changes since the last major release version. (I will probably have to write the code, but it is possible since SQL is the data store).
11 Can import our current VSS and not lose any history on the files.

[slava]

I think you need to indentify current VSS pain points and show your boss how will Vault address them. There shouldn't be many - pick top three. If you just throw nice-to-haves on the wall it's not going to stick.

Slava

[jclausius]

You have a nice start.

Here is a nice listing of some other differences - Reasons to Switch from SourceSafe to Vault

[ZackJones]

Here's some more info for your boss:

- Vault is extremely stable - zero crashes since we've started using it.
- Vault easily handles developers 'round the world. In our case we have developers located in Georgia, Florida, and Colorado and we are all able to access vault 24/7.
- The Vault/Dragnet bundle is your best deal. That's what we use and have had great success with it.
- With Dragnet you can configure your applications to automatically submit but reports for your users. We use this feature on all of our applications it's great. No bug go unreported.

Good luck!