Backup and Version Control

[GeeBhawllar]

Hello,
 
I have three problems i am trying to solve and i know i can get the solution from you very quickly.
 
My organization set up EA to use the SQL server which they is backed up weekly on a local drive.
 
We also set up TFS for version control. Before now there has not been too much attention paid to using Sparx as the single source of truth, but in the last two months things have changed.
 
Now that we want to use it as a source of truth, there is a lot of concern regarding recovery when a disaster strikes.
We are thinking of having nightly backups for the SQL database possibly to tapes.

We also proposed exporting the model xmi nightly but there are concerns that the templates and details of new elements and tagged values created will not be backed up this way. Even though the values will be exported but the structure will not
While we are considering all these, we had a Sparx reseller come in to advise us to move away from using TFS for version control since version control already exists on SQL and that the performance issues we are having may be due to the version control of TFS

We were further advised to use Sparx Security and Baselining, that we do not need TFS, instead we could use the version control that comes with MS SQL server

There are about 20 users right now but we expect to have up to 40 users by year end 2013
 
Based on the scenario above what is your advise/recommendation on the best way to handle

Backups (Could we go as far as creating a completely separate database like MySQL and automate the nightly project transfer to this database....... will this really take care of the backup issues that may arise?)

Version Control

Security (should we use rigid security in terms of Locks)

If you have best in class examples, i will appreciate it .....pdfs that can help will also be appreciated

[Geert Bellekens]

Hi Gee,

I must say I've never heard of version control within SQL server.
And even if that would exist, it would only be able to give you the difference between two versions in terms of database rows and columns, not in terms of classes, attributes, associations etc...

What you do need to think about it whether you really need version control.

Depending on the situation a combination of security, auditing (you haven't mentioned that yet), baselines, and of course backups can be enough.

The thing is that version control is a bit of a performance hit, and it tends to hinder effective collaboration. The reason for the performance hit is that it needs to export the model to xmi before it can be checked in, and it needs to import that xmi when you checkout.
The reason it hinders collaboration is because the smallest unit you can control now becomes a package (where with the regular security the smallest unit is an element). So if you have checked out a package your colleague will not be able to change anything to the contents of that package until you check-in again.

The only way to keep that a bit manageable it to make sure the controlled units are kept small enough. Packages with hundreds our thousands of elements will not be manageable that way.

But if you have the discipline to do this it it will actually help to keep your model clean and organised.

Furthermore you really should make a difference between backup and version control. These are two mechanisms with totally different unrelated goals.

Version control allows you to see what was changed when and by who, and if necessary undo those changes.

Backup is there to recover from disaster scenario's (someone accidentally deleted the whole database, the server crashed, alien invasion in the server room).

There are two documents about version control and deployment options somewhere on the Sparx website. I'll see if I can find them and post the link here.

Geert

PS. If you're thinking about a nightly project transfer, think backup/restore. Much faster.

[Geert Bellekens]

The documents can be found in the resources section of the website:

Deployment
Version Control

Geert

[GeeBhawllar]

Thanks Gee....awesome