MySQL reliability

[EvilGraham]

Hi,

I'm evaluating EA corporate as an alternative to Rational Software Modeler, which we are finding not too great (we used to be Rational Rose users and that wasn't too great either).

I've successfully been through all the tortuous processes involved in getting our old Rose model imported and I've set up a new MySQL-based repository on a Windows server. I inserted our model into this and started playing with it from my client machine, but I experienced a lot of crashes in the "Microsoft Cursor Engine", whatever that is. These were pretty fatal and caused EA to crash.

I noticed from trawling the forums that MySQL is considered possibly more problematic than some other DBs. Obviously I don't want to trust our valuable model to a less than robust solution so I'd appreciate any pointers on the issue.

Many thanks
Graham

[hd]

In  the ODBC configuration, have you checked the 2 options...

• Don't Optimize column Width
• Return Matching Rows
  

Refer to EA Help Setup a MySQL ODBC Driver.

[EvilGraham]

Yeah, I followed the instructions exactly.

Mind you, it's possible I forgot to do it in one of the many attempts I had at getting it to work so I'll check.

Someone recommended PostgreSQL as a better alternative - do you have any opinion on that?

Thanks
Graham

[thomaskilian]

Since EA is using ODBC (and likely on a quite low basis) it's more a question which database vendor you trust more. MySQL is fine and many LAMP applications assert that. Make your decision on the the database (what backup, mirroring, etc. tools you need), not on the EA/database connection, since it's simple ODBC.

[EvilGraham]

Some more info -

I deleted all my previous ODBC connections and started again from scratch and now I can't connect at all. There are various errors, mostly "Catastrophic", which I think other people have mentioned in the forum. Sometimes it says "Provider [{big negative number}]" and sometimes it warns that EA has encountered a network error and needs to close.

It's quite frustrating, as it was working yesterday and I can't make it happen again.

Cheers
Graham

[AdamHearn]

If your repository is on a Windows server then why not use MSDE. It's a free DB engine from Microsoft and EA works very well in it (given that MSDE is nothing more than a performance limited SQLServer we should not be surprised!).

I'm not sure if EA V6 has 'fixed' the issue with SQLServer Express (the replacement to MSDE) which is a fully fledged SQLServer 2005 server with no performance limitations but is size limited (most likely *many* times bigger than your repository would ever get!).

You can co-host the above with other SQL Server instances on the same machine so there are no conflicts.

[EvilGraham]

Good tip, thanks.

I tried MSDE on the same machine and although it seemed to set up OK I still get an error when trying to connect to the database.

In this case it gets through the setup OK using Windows NT authentication, I can even use the "Test Connection" button and successfully verify the connection. The failure comes when I have to give the connection a name - at this point it says "EA has experienced a network error" and shuts down.

I haven't tried connecting a remote client to it yet, this is on the server machine (where I'm trying to populate the database in the first place).

Strangely, on this machine I can still connect to yesterday's MySQL database (but I can't do that remotely).

To be honest it's no problem for us to use a big commercial database if we need to, but I need to evaluate EA first so I was hoping to set it up on something free.

Thanks for everyone's kind help so far.

Graham

[thomaskilian]

There are lots of people using database repos without problems. So you should use simple EAP files for your evaluation. They are MS Access database files with just another suffix. You can try to work with a repository later.

[EvilGraham]

Thanks, I already have a colleague who is using it this way (simple EAP file), I was trying to evaluate the repository feature in parallel.

My database difficulties aside, it looks like a very good product as far as I can tell. Not very much eye candy but fast, full featured and inexpensive.

The exact opposite of Rational Software Modeller it would seem.

Cheers
Graham

[thomaskilian]

You got it

I also needed some time to get the repository running. It is extremly important to follow the instructions exactly. That is:
- create the repo using Sparx' scripts
- if neccessary: setup ODBC
- transfer an example model
- ready to open the repository via ODBC or native

There's a thread about ODBC setup for MySQL. If you have diffuculties finding it, let me know.

[EvilGraham]

Thanks,

I was very careful to follow the instructions exactly and I did look at the various threads. I had it working perfectly for a while, now I don't seem to be able to get it to work again.

One possible thing I will look at today is software versions. I am using a slightly later MySQL ODBC connector than the one in the EA help example (I think mine is 3.51.12, which is the latest off the MySQL site). I think all other versions are exactly the same, but I need to check. I'd be surprised if it was that sensitive though.

Cheers
Graham

[EvilGraham]

Quick update -

We just moved the MySQL database to our big Linux server and it seems to work very well.

I don't really know why our Windows server didn't like it.

Now all we have to do is figure out how to do version control with ClearCase and we're home and dry.

Thanks for everyone's kind help.

Graham