"Get All Latest" is potentialy dangerous

[zkriz]

Hi,

Today we have experienced a serious "procedural" problem caused by "Get All Latest" feature usage.
Out configuration is as follows:
We have EA Corporate on two workstations, repository is on Oracle and CVS is used for version control.
Only some packages are under version control, so if someone wants to change this packages, he must check the package out before changes can take place. Other user cannot check out (and cannot change) this package before first user check the package in. So far - so good.
But, the second user can (and did) use "Get All Latest" option on the whole model. This action updated ALL data in our Oracle repository to a last commited state in CVS, so ALL changes after last CVS commit were lost!
I looked for some possibility in security settings to make the "Get All Latest" option unavailable, but with no success.
Am I right, or did I miss something?

[mikewhit]

As I have said before, the repository needs to be journalling, so that sets of changes (ideally on a user or package basis) can be rolled back or re-incorporated.

This would also lessen the need for separate version control, if done intelligently.

[HowardB]

Hello Kriz,

The Version Control Configurations dialog has an option to set the model as "Private" or "Shared".  When you specify that your model is "Shared", the "Get All Latest" command is disabled, for precisely the reason you have outlined in your post.

Using a DBMS as your model repository, represensts a "Shared" model situation and as such, you should leave the "Private Models" option in its default "unchecked" state.

Regards,
Howard.

[zkriz]

"This model is private" option IS unchecked, but "Get All Latest" is still enabled.
My EA version is 5.00.770 (corporate edition).

[HowardB]

Hello Kriz,

After further investigation, I have found that there is different behaviour depending on whether you are clicking on a version controlled package or non-version controlled package.  With non-controlled packages, the "Get All Latest" command is not being disabled when "Shared Model" has been specified.

This bug has now been recitfied and the fix will be available in EA 6.0, build 779.  This build should be released within the next few days.

Regards,
Howard.

[tjs]

We are currently EA v11 w/ a central DBMS & versioning w/ Tortoise SVN.  In "Version Control Settings" for the DBMS managed project we have the "This is a private model" checkbox UNCHECKED.    "Get All Latest" is still available to all of our users.  

The "Get All Latest" action has been performed a number of times causing links in our diagrams and packages to be broken.

According to this thread, Get All Latest" is supposed to be disabled for "shared."  Have we found another bug?  Are we configuring the project properly?

[qwerty]

I still recommend to not use VC in a central repository but Require User Lock to Edit and taking nightly snapshots which you can then put under VC. That improves performance and you get rid of quite some problems that come along with VC repositories. Use EA-VC predominantly when you work with many EAPs spread around.

q.

[tjs]

Thanks Qwerty..  

We have many (>15) users logging in and making changes.   It is important for us to keep a revision history for each change and be able to revert back to specific revisions.  Nightly snapshots is not sufficient version control for us.   Is there a way to accomplish this using a DBMS and no VC?   If so that would be ideal.  

Otherwise.. I'm considering getting rid of the DB altogether and moving back to a distributed SVN only configuration.   We have been hitting a lot of problems w/ this combined Central & SVN configuration.

Thoughts?

[qwerty]

I found the check in/out mechanism for a UML rather ridiculous (especially based on reading the check-in comments for such models!). It works source code, yes. But applying it to a UML model is like a hammer saying that all problems are nails. Nobody can really argue longer than 10 minutes to keep up a VC mechanism for UML repositories except being a blockhead (I'm not saying you are one, since we do not have the chance to argue here meaningful). Anyway, if you think you need to use VC you are probably best of using EAPs. Though that might bring you other problems.

q.

[tjs]

Thanks for the quick reply.   Yes.. returning to working with individual EAPs w/ VC is the next step I was considering.

while the specific xml changes that occur as a result of the UML process are not very meaningful to human-readers, the resulting states of the models are important.  If there is a better way to capture those states when a modeler is "done" editing, than I'd love to hear about it.  

There is a very good chance that I am fulfilling the role of said "blockhead" since there are still quite a few things I don't understand about how EA works.

[qwerty]

Unfortunately there are not so many options. And non of the currently available it optimal. As said: I prefer the locking method as it is the fastes and people can directly collaborate. The VC way is always with some parts of the model not being up to date. And you will recognize only after checking it out (taking some time) or get all latest (taking even much longer). The argument that you need to roll back does not really count. I have never ever seen any rollback since that also will affect other peoples work (which in turn would be even more unhappy). If you need a real roll back you can do that by creating a 2nd repos with an older state, export whatever you need and merge that (manually!) into the current model. A UML does not really have that sort of branch/merge you know from source code. It's always a "current state" towards a "future state". It's the basis where a couple of smart people exchange their thoughts about "something" where that "something" is a most times indefinite project goal. Discussing via the model helps to clarify that goal and help programmers later on to make the right code. The fact that someone introduces a class, changes a connector or creates a diagram is merely irrelevant. What counts is the whole model state. And a single commit can never ever tell that.

q.

[Eve]

Way to resurrect an ancient thread.

In the time since this thread was last posted (2008 I think) to we have enabled the Get All Latest command for shared models. It's now relatively common for multiple sites to use a shared repository with changes propagated through version control to the different repositories.

My understanding of the way that it is intended to work is that it should skip over packages checked out to any user in this model. If EA is not skipping those packages it's simply a bug.

[tjs]

Thanks Simon.   I do believe that we are seeing some kind of bug. Consistently, when we perform a "Get All Latest" while in our our "Centrailized" mode (DBMS +SVN),  data elements, relationships and hyperlinks go missing. This occurs even when there are no other packages checked out.  We are using EA v11 r 1107.  

We now have an internal policy that instructs people not to use this function.

[shimon]

Thanks Simon.   I do believe that we are seeing some kind of bug. Consistently, when we perform a "Get All Latest" while in our our "Centrailized" mode (DBMS +SVN),  data elements, relationships and hyperlinks go missing. This occurs even when there are no other packages checked out.  We are using EA v11 r 1107.  

We now have an internal policy that instructs people not to use this function.

How long have you been seeing this problem?

Did you encounter it with EA version 10?

[tjs]

Hi Simon,

We migrated from a distributed team environment to the centralized team environment about 2 months ago. At the same time we migrated from v10 to v11.  We were not losing links in the previous configuration (v10 + SVN, no central DBMS).  

Tim