Understanding External References

[SilverSage]

Happy New Year Everyone!

Now that's out of the way... 

Can anyone tell me where I can find EA documentation containing information about external references? I'm trying to learn whatever I can about them... what EA's definition is, potential causes, potential resolutions, relationship to repository design, relationship to dependencies and how to discover dependencies that might cause them, etc.

We're trying to copy the contents of an existing repository residing in a clusterblank of a ProgreSQL database into another instance of a clusterblank of a ProgreSQL database that was stood up and tweaked a bit better than our current instance to work with EA (13.5).

When we do the copy (We have no DBA support, so this is not a database table copy; we're performing the copy from one instance of EA connected to our source repository to another instance of EA connected to our target repository.), we get a xit-ton of external references on many of our existing BPMN 2.0 diagrams we're trying to move to this new instance. Looking at their properties, though, gives us no information. We're also losing connectors from diagrams in the target repository and some connectors themselves come across labeled as external references.

Are these external references we're seeing actually unresolved pointers back to our source database, in which case this approach will never work? Or is there a way we could make it work?

We're baffled and we're trying to get ourselves "unbaffled". If anyone can point me in the right direction, it would be a great New Year start.

Thanks for any and all assistance.

Michael

[Geert Bellekens]

Michael,

How are you trying to "copy" the model?
Have you tried model transfer? That process will basically do a table per table copy of the model resulting in an identical copy.

And also, run a project integrity check (fixing all the errors) before trying to transfer.

Geert

[Nizam]

Have you also considered using RASS to ascertain dependencies for the package you are exporting from the source model?
If Project transfer isn't an option, you need to understand all dependencies using RASS and import that into your new model.

Nizam

[SilverSage]

Michael,

How are you trying to "copy" the model?
Have you tried model transfer? That process will basically do a table per table copy of the model resulting in an identical copy.

And also, run a project integrity check (fixing all the errors) before trying to transfer.

Geert

Thanks for responding, Geert. Here's my situation. I have a project in a PostgreSQL RDBMS on a server located in a state on the eastern seaboard of the US. I need to get the contents of that project from that server to another server and PostgreSQL RDBMS located in a state in the Midwestern US. I have no-to-minimal database admin support.

I access each server through a cloud connection string, so I've had two instances of EA open, one for each server. My teammate and I have tried exporting models from our source project to XMI and then importing them into our target project. Not only does it take a long time (when it works), but on larger package imports the process fails (after running for hours) with this error: Microsoft OLEDB Persistence Provider [-2147024882] Not enough storage is available to complete this operation.

We've tried copying models in our source project to our clipboards and pasting them into our target project. That doesn't work well, either.

I'm sure part of our issue is the design of our repository, which contains a lot of packages and nested packages. From what I've been able to gather, that's a great design for creating issues with external references when chunks of a project get exported for someone to work on. I think we'll have to revisit our repository design at some point down the road.

I'll see if we can obtain the information we need to perform a model transfer. Hopefully, I can obtain the ODBC connection string info to the two servers from a couple of technical architects I know at my company.

Thanks for your help, Geert.

Michael

[SilverSage]

Have you also considered using RASS to ascertain dependencies for the package you are exporting from the source model?
If Project transfer isn't an option, you need to understand all dependencies using RASS and import that into your new model.

Nizam

Thank you for responding, Nazim. I'm not sure what RASS is. Is it a 3rd-party utility? If so, there's no chance of us being able to use it.

Michael

[qwerty]

Probably https://www.mdcalc.com/richmond-agitation-sedation-scale-rass

q.

[Geert Bellekens]

Have you also considered using RASS to ascertain dependencies for the package you are exporting from the source model?
If Project transfer isn't an option, you need to understand all dependencies using RASS and import that into your new model.

Nizam

Thank you for responding, Nazim. I'm not sure what RASS is. Is it a 3rd-party utility? If so, there's no chance of us being able to use it.

Michael

I know of RAS which stands for Reusable Asset Service. See http://www.sparxsystems.com/enterprise_architect_user_guide/13.5/model_repository/reuseable_asset_service.html
I guess that is what Nizam meant.

Geert

[SilverSage]

Probably https://www.mdcalc.com/richmond-agitation-sedation-scale-rass

q.

Funny as ever, q.    I found that and other references on google. I'll just say my RASS is a little chapped right now. Rimshot!

It didn't take me too long, but longer than it should have, to figure out that "RASS" should have been RAS. I'm pretty sure we're running RAS, but that's all I know at this point. It's lovely having little-to-no support for an enterprise project that's important enough to spend money on, but not important enough to provide adequate support or infrastructure. I guess I now I have some reading to do and questions to ask. No rest for the wicked.

[SilverSage]

I know of RAS which stands for Reusable Asset Service. See

http://www.sparxsystems.com/enterprise_architect_user_guide/13.5/model_repository/reuseable_asset_service.html
I guess that is what Nizam meant.

Geert

Thanks, Geert. I figured that out, as I mentioned to q in my response to him. Thanks for the current link. I found a 34-page PDF, but it appears to be older, dated 2015 - 2016. I don't know if many differences between the contents of your link and the PDF exist, but I'll go with the latest information.

[SilverSage]

Well, after creating a storage in RAS and trying to register the top-most package (contains all our packages and subpackages), I received the ever-helpful cloud services error message: The operation timed out.

Would this failed registration process create a log on the server - or perhaps on the machine where I initiated the registration process - with enough information to be helpful for troubleshooting?

Thanks.

Michael

[qwerty]

Uffe is a promoter of RAS and probably knows an answer. But I suspect he's on skiing holidays. Not too helpful, I know...

q.

[SilverSage]

Well, at least I now have a name. I'll PM him and see where it gets me.

Thanks, q.

Michael

[Nizam]

Well, after creating a storage in RAS and trying to register the top-most package (contains all our packages and subpackages), I received the ever-helpful cloud services error message: The operation timed out.

Would this failed registration process create a log on the server - or perhaps on the machine where I initiated the registration process - with enough information to be helpful for troubleshooting?

Thanks.

Michael

Sorry, i did mean RAS. RAS is useful if you are trying to find dependencies of a few  packages. And ive used it to establish branching for a number of teams. 
Howver if it's including all top level packages amd all sub packages, please consider a project transfer. 

Nizam

[SilverSage]

Snip

Sorry, i did mean RAS. RAS is useful if you are trying to find dependencies of a few  packages. And ive used it to establish branching for a number of teams. 
Howver if it's including all top level packages amd all sub packages, please consider a project transfer. 

Nizam

Nizam -

I am working on setting up a project transfer, because that seems to be the only way we're going to be able to move our project from one server and database to another without the help of a DBA.

That being said, I finally got RAS to show me what I was trying to find - all the package dependencies I wanted to see for a diagram that I knew to contain links to dozen of diagrams in at least as many packages.

I've been able to figure out many fairly complicated software packages without too much difficulty, but EA is one of the most unintuitive I've ever used and has forced me to research and read doc more than just about any other software I've used in recent times.

The information I needed to read, and eventually found, was, of course, four pages away from the end of the RAS PDF I printed. However, I found it and now I'm happy. Case closed.

[Nizam]

Gooit it finally worked out.  If you have any specific queries on RAS so not hesitate to ping me.
Nizam