The last week at FSI went at break neck speed. Coordinating between the UK and Eugene branches, we finally started down the road of implementing the new version of Microsoft Visual SourceSafe (2005) to run over HTTP.

The current system has the UK branch employees VPN into the Eugene network and then transfer files over the LAN. This is definitely a secure method of transferring data, but hardly the most efficient. HTTP would allow users to connect anywhere without the hassle of VPN and its slower connection speed. Also, HTTP access with VSS 2005 allows employees to utilize the Internet plug-in built into Visual Studio 2005. That means that the software developers don’t have to use the separate VSS application to upload data to the server. While VSS 2005 works well enough, we will see how much the use of HTTP is preferred over VPN since I was unable to test the upload rate with a network connection external to the network. If the rate aren’t noticable then the company may require a dedicated cable internet connection for the server running VSS 2005.

All of this remains to be seen, but the documentation goes on. Since this project went right to the wire, I still have documents to write that update the managers on the status of all of the projects that I started this summer. I’d say two main projects were completed and two more are almost finished. All in all, productivity was high and I learned a great deal about managing servers in a small business environment.