Integration of EA with Visual Studio 2008

[Zanzor]

Hi Everyone.

I hope that I haven't started a topic that already existed. I tried to find this kind of topic but there are just so many pages in this forum to work through and so little time.

I have a valid/licensed version of MS Visual Studio 2008 and also of Enterprise Architect so I would like to use these two products together where possible.

I have an existing VS2008 C#.Net application which is running in production and would now like to document this system using EA. I know that documentation should be done first but lets leave that discussion for another day. EA will give me the class diagrams, sequence diagrams etc. I know it will not be able to give me everything at this LATE stage because I am working from the code side back to the design but whatever it can give me would be nice.

QUESTION: How do I pull the C# application code into EA. I looked for an "Import Visual Studio C#.Net Project" function in EA but am batteling to find it.

Then for future C# systems, I was wondering how easy it is to integrate EA with Visual Studio 2008 so that a lot of EA functionality is embedded inside VS2008. In other words I am trying to say that as you develop your VS C#.Net project, the EA .eap project file should be created as you go along so that you can later open the .eap file in Enterprise Architect and generate the documentation from within EA.

Thank you for any advice you guys can give me.  

[RoyC]

Perhaps look at this link from the Sparx Systems website home page...

http://www.sparxsystems.com/products/mdg/int/vs/index.html

[Zanzor]

Thank you so much RoyC. I will quickly read up a bit more and I hope the cost is not too much.  

[Zanzor]

Hi,

I downloaded the "MDG Enterprise Architect integration with Visual Studio 2008" tool and installed it on my machine. It told me that it was installed successfully and inside Visual Studio 2008 I can see all the Sparx Systems related UML menu items. I downloaded v7.1 of the integration tool and not v7.5 because I have Enterprise Architect PROFESSIONAL v6.1 installed on my machine. I also dowloaded the integration manual and tried to follow the steps.

The manual tells me to now go ahead and create the Enterprise Architect Models. A wizards cicks in, I complete the actions in the wizard and then an empty "EA Project Explorer" window pops up. I tried with a new project and an existing project but get the same results.

Is my Enterprise Architect v6.1 too old? Is this tool not compatible with EA v6.1? My company don't want to fork out the money to take me up to v7.5. Am I doomed or does an older version of the MDG integration tool exist?

Please advice.

[Geert Bellekens]

Zanzor,

If your boss is too cheap to let you upgrade EA then you better get out of there ASAP
You do know that you only need to purchase a "support license" for a year to be able to upgrade.
IIRC the yearly support fee is about €60 per seat (professional version) see http://www.sparxsystems.com/products/ea/license_info.html for more details.

Geert

[pocketom]

If your boss is too cheap to let you upgrade EA then you better get out of there ASAP

[smiley=tekst-toppie.gif]. Costs are really located somewhere else.

Cheers.

[Aaron B]

The current production release requires EA 7.5 build 849 or greater.  See:
http://www.sparxsystems.com/products/mdg/int/vs/sysreq.html

Not sure about the exact requirements for the beta release - might be Enterprise Architect 8, but I don't know for sure.

As a rough guide, a 1 year EA license renewal is approximately 1/3rd the full cost of a new license.  I'd suggest contacting our sales department for a more accurate quote.  See "Sales and General Enquiries" on the following page:
http://www.sparxsystems.com/support/index.html

[Zanzor]

Thank you all for the excellent response. I already took this issue up, AGAIN, with my manager and I could see the sun slowly shining through but only time will tell. It's almost a kind of "show me first and then we talk money". Until then I will try to work from the EA side and see how much I can achieve. I kind of managed to reverse engineer from the EA side for my existing project but the project is huge and it ran for some time during the reverse engineering and I had to cancel the process. Then I did a portion (assembly) and that seems to give me something back and now I hope that at the end I might be able to put the pieces together.