SOS

SOS is the leading design data management product for hardware design teams. It provides version control, work-area management, release management, and project control, without forcing designers to change their existing design environment. SOS differs from other products in many ways, but there are four ways in which it is unique. First, SOS solves many design needs with one integrated product that is non-intrusive to the design environment. Second, SOS is designed as a client-server system so teams that are geographically dispersed can still work together on the same project. Third, SOS has built-in features like "visibility-on-demand" that facilitates team collaboration and help designers avoid common mistakes which occur when you share many files. Fourth, SOS has an open architecture that allows easy integration with design processes and design tools. SOS is currently available on Solaris, HP-UX, and Linux. Version Control

• SOS tracks design changes to files and directories. A typical design team starts with an initial skeleton design hierarchy. This hierarchy changes over the duration of the project. SOS allows designers to change file names, directory names and design hierarchy with the ability to re-create any previous design hierarchy.
• SOS can version control every type of design file including ASCII and non-ASCII files. For example, HDL, Schematic, Layout, SDF, VCD, makefile, Scripts, DB etc.
• SOS maintains the entire design and design change history in a secure centralized design repository. Designers cannot accidentally destroy any design data. The entire revision history allows easy design reuse, maintenance and support in future. Designers can easily reproduce past problems, fix bugs, create patch release, extend design functionality and release an update.

Work-area Management

• SOS provides each designer with multiple personalized and stable work-areas. Each work-area is local to each designer and does not contain any links to the centralized design repository. This allows each designer to be isolated from design changes made by other designer on the project. Also, this shields designers from working over the network, one of the primary reasons for slow CAD tools performance. Furthermore designers can continue to work even if the network goes down.
• SOS allows easy access to design files and directories in the centralized repository. Each designer can choose a "revision search order" similar to configuration specification, and populate their work-areas with appropriate revisions of design files and directories that they want to work on.
• SOS provides each designer with complete control over his or her work-areas. This allows each designer to synchronize or update their work-areas with design changes made by other designers or recreate past work-areas. For example, in a team environment, often someone makes a change to the design, that causes the entire design to break. Instead of waiting for the design to recover, each designer can continue designing by going back in time and updating his or her work-area to when the entire design worked.

ClioSoft, Inc., 1580 Washington Blvd., Fremont, CA 94539. Tel: 510-440-8424; Fax: 510-440-8852.