Web based repository?

[Paolo F Cantoni]

It's not clear from the ProCloud site whether the repository can be web-based (such as Azure SQL).

Does anybody have any experience with cloud-based repositories?  Are there any "gotchas"?

TIA,
Paolo

[Prolaborate Support]

Hello Paolo,

As per our experience in hosting multiple EA production environments in AWS, Azure, and Toggle Box we have not seen any difference between on-premises and cloud DB servers. We just need to take care of the security aspects.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Hello Paolo,

As per our experience in hosting multiple EA production environments in AWS, Azure, and Toggle Box we have not seen any difference between on-premise and cloud DB servers. We just need to take care of the security aspects.

Thanks!  But to nit-pick, there is no such term as on-premise (notwithstanding its use by many people).  The correct term is "on-premises".   Ask Roy...  Or Doctor Google,

"Is it on-premise or on premises?
premise / premises. Some people suppose that since “premises” has a plural form, a single house or other piece of property must be a “premise,” but that word is reserved for use as a term in logic meaning something assumed or taken as given in making an argument. Your lowly one-room shack is still your premises. May 30, 2016"

or

"On-premises software (abbreviated "on-prem") is installed and runs on computers on the premises of the person or organization using the software, rather than at a remote facility such as a server farm or cloud."

It's not installed on the premise (for the reasons in the first example).

Paolo

[Prolaborate Support]

Thank you for taking time to share your knowledge. Appreciate it!

Hope you got the answer to your question.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge. Appreciate it!

Hope you got the answer to your question.

Yes, I did thanks.

As to the premise that one shouldn't correct incorrect usage - the increased entropy of the language is an answer in itself.

I'm sorry if it came over a bit heavy, but unfortunately for me, it actually causes a degree of physical (as well as psychological) pain when I see/hear incorrect usage.

Paolo

[Sunshine]

We've just been trialling the use of Cloud Pro Server and Web EA.

What we've found so far with our brief evaluation.
Pros

• Opens the repository to a wider user base who can provide feedback online
• The performance seems good

Cons

• When importing an XML file from Sparx EA the elements came across but not the diagrams. Working with Sparx to try and resolve. Turns out the add-ins interfere with it and throw an exception. Once add-ins disabled MS Word import and visio importer the exception goes away but Sparx Just hangs. Sparx claim they can import the XMI file with diagrams but we've tried it on two different machines and versions of Sparx V14.1 and V15 beta 2. Best result was using XML native to get the diagrams however Sparx EA still hung
• The notes field could be edited but the tag values couldn't be edited which is a problem for us as we have quite a few tag values in our EA MDG

So for us its not quite there yet.

By the way we've been told that the DB at the backend in the trial was Firebird.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Eventually, I suppose we'll be going to Pro Cloud Server and WebEA, but for now, I want to focus on directly accessing a web-based repository.

Not that I don't believe Prolaborate Support, but I presume the response is in their context.  I'd like to confirm that the most simple Use Case is possible.

Is there any problem connecting via an ODBC connection to the Web-based repository?  We use MS Access a lot to run stuff in the background and would need to be able to do the same.

Can anyone confirm?

Paolo

[Sunshine]

I think you are out of luck as I don't believe ODBC is supported over the internet. The only way I've connected to cloud pro server is via the special cloud connector setup using HTTP or HTTPS.
However looking at the technology overview diagram on https://sparxsystems.com/products/procloudserver/ if you have the environment on-premise then you can use ODBC to connect to the DB direct. There is a note saying only recommended for some admin tasks.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

I think you are out of luck as I don't believe ODBC is supported over the internet. The only way I've connected to cloud pro server is via the special cloud connector setup using HTTP or HTTPS.
However looking at the technology overview diagram on https://sparxsystems.com/products/procloudserver/ if you have the environment on-premise then you can use ODBC to connect to the DB direct. There is a note saying only recommended for some admin tasks.

Yes, I was aware that ODBC can't connect to the Cloud (AFAIK).  However, I did hear of an Azure driver that allows you to access the AZURE SQL DB from an on-premises machine.  But I'm having trouble finding anything about it.

I guess one can't do a project transfer from the cloud to the on-premises machine either.

Can anyone elaborate?

Paolo