Why do I need SQLSourceSafe

Why do I need SQLSourceSafe?

SQLSourceSafe is a must-have source control tool for developers working with SQL Server 2000 edition. Consider the following questions:

Do you care about the safety of your database code and scripts?
Do you want to enable teamwork development?
Do you want to have an integrated development environment with the Source Control features and more?

If you answer YES to any of these questions, SQLSourceSafe is the right tool for you!

Even if you don't think that you will need anything above, please read on. We will show you that SQLSourceSafe is the source control tool that every SQL Server development project needs to have.

Why do I need Source Control and Versioning for my SQL Server?

Well, have you ever faced any of the following situations and sweated?

A DBA or developer accidentally deletes a database item. Now you need to un-do this deletion.
A developer made some major changes in a stored procedure and then realized that he has made a terrible mistake in the change. Now you need to revert that stored procedure back to the previous code.

· Customer reported bugs in your release 1.0. You have already started release 1.1 and change the database scripts. Now you need to find the release 1.0 code to make the fix for the customer.

The database machine crashed. Now you need to rebuild the database from scratch.

If you don't have a source control tool, your project is in jeopardy. If you are lucky, you may have done a daily or weekly backup. But retrieving from the backup is not an ideal solution. First of all, the backup may not give you the exact file(s) that you are looking for. It may just give you the file(s) that are close to what you are looking for. Also retrieving from backup takes hours, if not days.

A version control tool will come to your rescue in these situations. SQLSourceSafe is the tool that saves you thousands of dollars in these situations and assures you the safety of your project files.

In addition to those critical version control needs, SQLSourceSafe enables you these benefits:

Look at the history of the database object. So you can check, for example, the original creation of a trigger.
Track database schema and code changes.
Set up teamwork environment and become more productive.

So what can I do?

The importance of source control and versioning cannot be underestimated. SQLSourceSafe which allows you to use source control and versioning feature, moreover - at very low cost.

Why do I need comprehensive database Documentation?

Requirements change. Developers come and go. And time is crucial in daily battle-for-market. Imagine, that:

A customer wants you to add new functionality to an application, that you didn't touch it for the last 6 months, and what's worse - developers who created it don't work at your company any more. You don't have any database documentation and it is huge enough to make reverse-engineering a nightmare. In the end you lose a lot of money and a customer. All because of poor documented database...
You added new developer to a project and asked him to add things here and there to the database he doesn't know
Your customer requires you to provide him with full database documentation (prosaic, but very common)
Your database administrators need to know what's where and why in the database and you cannot
Having all software project documented is very important. Built-in SQL Server documentation functionality is very poor (only table field description) and very hard to maintain. Moreover, with SQL Server you cannot create any documentation reports.

Why do I want to enable teamwork development?

By working with a team of developers, you can create applications faster, and can develop more complex applications. You can blend the skills of different developers to create applications that would be difficult or impossible for a single developer to create.
However, team development requires extra effort in the development process. Successful team development depends on:

Allowing several developers to work with the same databases at the same time.
Coordinating the changes that are made to the same database elements, so that one developer's changes don't overwrite those of another developer.

For example, imagine that your team is developing a complex application. Because the application is large, you must allow several developers to be working at once on different components of the application. However, you want to be sure that only one developer at a time works on an individual element, such as a stored procedure or a trigger, so that one developer doesn't overwrite the changes made by another developer.
A significant feature of SQL Server teamwork development is the use of a source code control system to coordinate who can access and modify items in a database.

SQLSourceSafe allows you to do this, moreover, at very low cost. It will ensure that your developers will work more productively.

SQLSourceSafe is an integrated SQL development tool for every SQL Server 2000 developer.

SQLSourceSafe is also an integrated development environment, that integrates all features mentioned above (source control, documentation and teamwork), allowing even more:

Manage your triggers independently of the tables they are attached to
Edit your code taking advantage of SQL syntax color coding to improve the readability of complex statements
Benefit from Intellisense-style automatic code completion, that assists you with statement completion and the available properties of database objects by displaying information in drop-down lists, for example table columns list as you type your SQL code in the editor.
Group your databases together in one project with connections