Using EA v8 and EA v11 in parallel

[Max Widen]

Hi.

We have two teams using the same SQL server hosted repository. This repository was created under EAv8 some years ago and currently stores lot of models and elements (10k+ at least).

One of the teams is about to upgrade their licenses and wish to install EA v11 client software.

The question is, whether it's possible to continue using two different versions of EA in parallel without loosing or corrupting any data in shared repository? Splitting our repository in two (one - to manage under EA8, the other - to manage under EA11 is not an option)

Thank you!

[qwerty]

You can do so without much risk. There are only a few changes in V11 which are not backward compatible (I always forget which it was, Requirements?). If your colleagues with V11 do not use new features and continue modeling as before there won't be any issue.

q.

[Eve]

Between 8 and 11 your biggest problem will be enumerations.

[Max Widen]

Q, Simon, thanks!
How can I determine those incompatible features without totally testing our repository? Should I compare DB schema&? Or is there already some info in [un]official documentation?

What exactly do you mean saying "enumerations"? Are they some EA basic lists (list of permissions, list of supported element types) or anything else?

Thanks again.

[qwerty]

There are Enumeration elements which are now used differently. If you don't use them, you are on the safe side. I did not use them in most of my projects. To check whether there are any just enter Ctrl-F, switch on the Builder and select the SQL tab. There just enter

Code: [Select]

select * from t_object where stereotype = "enumeration"
In the new version the stereotype has mutated to Object_type. If you have any classes appearing in the above search you will be in trouble.

q.

[Max Widen]

Tried running the query: less than 10 elements having object_type "class" and stereotype "enumeration". Not a big deal

We mostly develop requirements, not architechtural models.
We never use "Maintenance" items at element level, but we have lot of custom RTF templates. Our elements often contain Linked Documents.
Any known issues on these features?

[Uffe]

With RTF templates, EA 11 will happily generate documents from templates created in EA 8. But if someone in your EA 11-based team decides to use template fragments or virtual documents, those obviously won't work for your EA 8 team.

So again it comes down to making sure that the EA 11 team doesn't use any features (which store information in the repository) that are not supported in EA 8. If you can do that, the two can probably coexist pretty well. If not, you need to be prepared for productivity issues of the "it doesn't do that on my machine" variety.

Actual data corruption, I think, will be minimal. If an EA 8 user modifies an EA 11-created RTF template which has a reference to a template fragment, that template will probably break, but actual model contents are not likely to be particularly brittle. Other than enumerations.

Any way you slice it, it's a project risk. I would definitely advise setting up a test repository and trying the coexistence thing there before you try it in a production environment. You're jumping three major releases and three minor ones, after all, and asking them to play nicely in the same sandbox.

My 2 cents'.


/Uffe

[Max Widen]

Uffe, thank you!
Currently, we are deploying test repository and preparing a test plan. Known issues (like the one with enumerations or the other one with templates) are very helpful now.