A Reviewer's Guide to Source Integrity

MKS Source Integrity 7.1:
Complete Configuration Management for your software development project

What is Configuration Management?

Configuration Management is a system addressing the life cycle of a software development project. Comprehensive tools and processes identify, manage and control software and related components as they change over time. Configuration Management tools provide version control, configuration control, change control, build and release support, and process management.

Ovum Ltd., a prominent European management consulting firm that focuses on the software configuration management (SCM) market, provides some astounding statistics in its latest SCM report:

• The worldwide SCM market will be $1.25 billion by the year 2000
• US growth of the SCM market in 1995 is 50%. European growth is 60%
• The SCM market will represent 12% of the market for application development tools in 1995, and 25-30% by the year 2000

MKS Source Integrity

MKS Source Integrity is the solution for both development teams and managers. This easy-to-use configuration management system orchestrates the entire software development process, and guarantees the integrity of an organization's source code assets. With MKS Source Integrity, managers have complete control over the development process, and teams have useable tools that allow them to spend their time producing software, instead of learning how to produce it.

MKS Source Integrity decreases time-to-market, guarantees software reliability, and saves the company money.

Key features of MKS Source Integrity include:

• complete project management facilities
• visual merge
• reporting capabilities
• event triggers
• integration into Visual C++ (v.4.0), Visual Basic (v.4.0) and Borland C++
• an automated building process
• file promotion
• NetWare specific functionality

Supported platforms include:

• DOS
• OS/2
• Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows NT
• UNIX
• Macintosh

Advanced Features: MKS Source Integrity 7.1c

True Team Development

MKS Source Integrity orchestrates true team development, and maximizes productivity by allowing multiple programmers to work in a client server environment. Developers don't work at the expense of the team, and the team doesn't interfere with the developers. MKS Source Integrity organizes both the developer's and the team's efforts with sandbox environments, variant sandboxes and file locking.

Sandboxes guarantee each team member a safe, personalized place to work that is kept up-to-date with the master project.

Variant Sandboxes allow team members to work on various releases of the same project at the same time. This is vital for post-release maintenance.

File Locking ensures that only one developer modifies a specific version of a file at one time. Developers cannot overwrite one another's changes.

Release Management

MKS Source Integrity assures managers of consistently high quality. It automates the difficult and costly process of managing releases. Managers can track each stage of the release by using MKS Source Integrity's suite of unprecedented tools. MKS Source Integrity offers baselines, labels, promotion and an integrated build procedure:

Baselines are a snapshot of an entire project. Recreating past versions of entire projects can easily be done, facilitating post-release maintenance.

Labels ensure easy access to past releases of projects and individual files.

Promotion tracks your project through its entire development life cycle. Managers and developers alike will always know which stage of the development process both projects and individual files are in., and where they're going next.

Build Facilities guarantee consistent, uniform, repeatable builds.

Maximum Productivity

MKS Source Integrity maximizes productivity by automating all the tedious tasks of source management, allowing developers to maximize coding time. MKS Source Integrity's innovative approach to source management fits seamlessly into established development processes so teams can reap immediate productivity gains. MKS Source Integrity offers third party integration, visual differencing and merging, and multiple interfaces.

Third Party Integration gives developers all the benefits of MKS Source Integrity while still providing full access to their favorite development tools.

Visual Differencing and Merging provides developers with color-coded tools that outline additions, deletions and changes to source files. The visual merge tool, a unique function of MKS Source Integrity, combines files and identifies differences by pointing and clicking.

Multiple Interfaces offer development teams the flexibility they need. MKS Source Integrity can be accessed via the easy-to-use graphical user interface, a command line interface for batch processing, and through third party integration. There's also a documented Software Developers Kit so MKS Source Integrity can be built into internal development systems.

MKS Source Integrity Partners

Partner                  Product                   Link to Source
                                                   Integrity

Borland                  C++,  Delphi              Delphi and C++           
                         Category: Software        developers can access    
                         Development Language      MKS Source Integrity     
                                                   from within their        
                                                   native environment.      
                                                   File Level Check In and  
                                                   Check Out. Hooks         
                                                   support both 16 bit and  
                                                   32 bit versions of       
                                                   Codewright.              

Watcom                   C++                       C++ developers can       
                         Category: Software        access MKS Source        
                         Development Language      Integrity from within    
                                                   their native             
                                                   environment. File Level  
                                                   Check In and Check Out.  

Microsoft                Visual Basic (v.4.0)      Visual Basic and Visual  
                         Visual C++ (v.4.0)        C++ developers can       
                         Category: Software        access MKS Source        
                         Development Language      Integrity from within    
                                                   their native             
                                                   environment. Hooks       
                                                   provide project/         
                                                   sandbox functionality,   
                                                   instead of just File     
                                                   Level Check In and       
                                                   Check Out .              

Powersoft                PowerBuilder              PowerBuilder developers  
                         Category: Programming     can access MKS Source    
                         Language                  Integrity from within    
                                                   their native             
                                                   environment. Object      
                                                   Level Check In and       
                                                   Check Out.               

American Cybernetics     MultiEdit for Windows     MultiEdit Developers     
                         Category: Text Editor     can access MKS Source    
                                                   Integrity from within    
                                                   their native             
                                                   environment. File Level  
                                                   Check In and Check Out.  

Premia                   Codewright                Codewright developers    
                         Category: Text Editor     can access MKS Source    
                                                   Integrity from within    
                                                   their native             
                                                   environment. File Level  
                                                   Check In and Check Out.  
                                                   Hooks support both 16    
                                                   bit and 32 bit versions  
                                                   of Codewright.           

Qualit                   Defect Manager            Defect Manager           
                         Category: Bug Tracker     developers can access    
                                                   MKS Source Integrity     
                                                   from within their        
                                                   native environment.      
                                                   File Level Check In and  
                                                   Check Out.               

Soffront                 Track                     Soffront developers can  
                         Category: Bug Tracker     access MKS Source        
                                                   Integrity from within    
                                                   their native             
                                                   environment. File Level  
                                                   Check In and Check Out.  

MKS Source Integrity Users

Cognos Inc.

• 126 developers using MKS Source Integrity to work on more than 1 million lines of code
• platforms include Win NT and UNIX; hooks into Visual Basic and

3M Health Information Systems

• writing hospital software

AT&T

• " MKS Source Integrity is a great product and has served our purposes. It installed faster than anything else I've seen and I've seen a lot. Once you fill out one dialog box it's ready!"

API (Automated Proiferals Inc.)

• 60 licenses for DOS/Win

Micrografx

• 56 licenses for DOS/Win, and NT.

MKS Source Integrity Questions and Answers

Q:

What type of security does MKS Source Integrity have?

A:

Source Integrity is fully compatible with and takes advantage of Novell's comprehensive set of security methodologies to protect data and configuration information at the file level.

All you do is set permissions with the MKS Source Integrity NetWare Loadable Module (NLM) to provide the level of security needed at your site. You can tailor permissions to:

• Restrict archive access to authorized users
• Restrict the ability to delete archives
• Prohibit or allow deletion of saved revisions

Q:

How many copies of MKS Source Integrity are needed for proper licensing?

A:

One copy per user. The Novell LAN version will only allow users whose name appears in a control file to use the software.

Q:

Is MKS Source Integrity compatible with PVCS, SCCS or GNU?

A:

Source Integrity converts PVCS & SCCS archives. It is fully compatible with GNU.

Q:

Is the interface the same across all platforms?

A:

No. The Windows version is a true Windows application. All UNIX versions have a command line interface only. All operating platforms are compatible.

Q:

Does MKS Source Integrity run on a network?

A:

Yes. MKS Source Integrity supports all NetBIOS compatible networks with specialized support for Novell.

Q:

Can two people "check out" the same file at the same time? Is there a warning?

A:

Yes, unless the first person "locks" the file. If this happens, a second user can only check out a read-only copy.

Q:

Can users track projects that have different files?

A:

Yes. MKS Source Integrity allows users to manage different files that are part of the same project. The project management feature of MKS Source Integrity edges it ahead of any other product in the configuration management market.

Q:

Does MKS Source Integrity allow for batching?

A:

Yes.

Q:

Does MKS Source Integrity support binary files?

A:

Yes, it supports all binary files.

MKS The Right Size

MKS Source Integrity is developed, marketed, and supported by MKS a company known worldwide for superior customer service and support. MKS is large enough to support any Fortune 500 company for the long haul yet small enough to remain dynamic in a quickly changing industry. MKS offers complete Professional Services, top quality customer support, and is dedicated to providing clients with complete configuration management solutions.

Professional Services consults and trains clients to promote maximum efficiency and fit with MKS products.

Customer Support Professionals are in tune to clients' urgent needs.

Dedicated to Source Management MKS is dedicated to providing clients with top quality code management tools. We practice what we preach!