2007-04-20 17:37:31

Vault 3.5.2

SourceGear released Vault 3.5.2 today (downloads page).  The previous current version of Vault was 3.5.1, so this is what we call a maintenance release.  However, this is a very special maintenance release.  You can read the full release notes if you like, but I want to highlight a few reasons why this new version is a big deal.

First of all, version 3.5.2 introduces a number of small things:

• We added official support for Windows Vista and the x64 versions of Windows. 
• We fixed some quirky behavior with Shadow Folders. 
• We added a few little featurettes to the Vault GUI client. 
• We fixed some bugs in the MSSCCI (IDE integration) client.

But the big news for 3.5.2 is a bunch of performance and scalability improvements to the Vault server.  All three of the most common operations (Refresh, Check out and Commit) have been significantly improved.  In addition, Branch is now dramatically faster.

As Vault has continued to mature and grow in popularity, we have been attracting larger customers, sites with hundreds of developers on a single Vault server.  These improvements are going to make an especially big difference for those users.

I pause now for a moment to think back to the beginning of this product.  During the development of Vault 1.0, we were courting a customer who had about 70 developers on their team.  We lost that deal because our product wasn't ready for that kind of load.  Today, over four years later, I can feel confident in selling Vault to a team that is 10 times that size.

Note:  I am not saying Vault is changing to become an "Enterprise" product.  We will continue to position Vault as a product for the "Professional" tier, but the line between these two market segments is not always clear.  Microsoft defines the boundary at 500 developers, but there is some overlap in the way these customers buy tools.  Sometimes a company in the Professional segment will choose a more Enterprise-oriented product like Microsoft Team Foundation Server or Rational ClearCase.  And sometimes an Enterprise company is looking for the affordability and simplicity of a Professional tier product like Vault.

Bottom line:  Our product got better today.  It's a good day.