Do you support this functionality?

[rtorres]

Hi

We are evaluating your product, and it looks pretty good!!!
Before we continue, can you let us know if you support these features or if future support is considered?

- SQL Server project storage
- Suspect flags raised in linked requirements when a related requirement is changed
- Workgroup collaborations, how do you do that now?
- How big the project can get before the Access database collapses?

Do you have any documentation about best practices or suggestions for concurrent analysts/designers/develpers using your product?

Thanks

[sparks]

Hello,

1) Support for other backend databases (like SQLServer, Oracle etc) is a high priority and we hope to have a version released that supports this within the next 3 to 4 months.


2) Currently EA does not support this, however we can see the usefulness of it so we will take it under advisement.


3) EA has a few ways of enabling mutil-user acces (all are in the evaluation version)
i. Simplest of all is place the project file *.eap on a shared network drive ... then one or more users simply open the file on the shared drive. This is OK for small workgroups .. say up to 10-15 users concurrently working in EA
ii. Use the Replication features to expand the number of users and geographic distribution ... users have their own copy of the project which they periodically synch with a Design Master project at a central location. You have to create and manage replicas to do this - check out the help file.
iii. Use the XMI import/export capability to create and manage controlled folders. Assign a folder to a user or local workgroup, then export the folder as XMI for import into a larger repository. Likewise, esport from the larger repository to XMI for import into smaller projects.
Check out the help file for some more information on these techniques. Each has its benefits and shortcomings, and you may decide to use a mix of all three to get the job done - or simply settle for a single technique.

4) We do not know what the maximum size of a project is - as no-one seems to have reached that point yet.

Below are the stats for a project that has a size of > 31MB

> 8000 elements
> 9000 connections
> 1300 diagrams
> 2000 use cases
> 12000 attributes
> 30000 operations

The load time on my Pentium 800 is still under 10 seconds and the time to load and save diagrams/elements etc. is not siginificantly changed from smaller models.

We have seen - and worked on a model with over 25MB of data - mainly in business process and use case models (around 250 UC, 250 Processes) - this was develoed over a year by 5 people using the model on a shared network drive. The documentation output ran to several thousand pages.

Hope this answers your questions.

Paul Mathers