version-control Getting started with version-control Selection, Installation & Setup

Example

Selection of a Version Control System

Of course many organisations or projects already have a preferred or selected version control system if this is the case for you just skip to client installation.

There are a number of things to consider when selecting the version control system to use, given unordered as everybody will have different priorities:

• Costs ranges to nearly nothing to huge sums breaks down into
  • Initial Costs (non-recurrent)
    • Server Software Initial Purchase price - ranges from zero to many thousands
    • Server hardware & operating provision costs
  • Ongoing Usage Fees (Server) (recurrent)
    • Any Server Software annual or monthly licence &/or maintenance fees - ranges from zero to many thousands
    • Possible server storage fees hosted services often have some sort of storage fees
    • For hosted solutions you may also be looking at CPU time charges, bandwidth charges, etc.
    • Administration & Maintenance costs some high end version control systems require multiple full time administrators
  • Per developer/seat setup charges only when adding new team member or platform
    • Client software purchase price - ranges from zero to thousands
    • Developer (re-)training
  • Per developer/seat ongoing charges
    • Client software annual renewal/maintainace fees - ranges from zero to thousands
    • Any client usage fees
    • Developer re-training after any major updates to the VCS or the procedures
• Available platforms (Server) - which platform(s) can act as your server if one is required personally when I am informed that the server only runs on only one specific OS, sometimes to a specific service pack, or hardware platform it rings alarm bells
• Available platforms (Client(s)) - which platform or platforms can your developers use? Are you limited to a single client? Again a personal preference is for multiple clients on multiple platforms
• Availability
• Possible Offline Use

Setup of VCS Server

This will be specific to the VCS selected above.

Setup of VCS Client(s)

This will be specific to the VCS clients that match the server above but has some common points exist: