Source Control in Data Manager

[McDale]

Hey All,

I'm curious about Source Control within our Data Manager environment.  Our department, as a whole, is looking at moving to use "Collabnet" for SCM etc...  Being part of this group, and encouraged to use the team standard, our group is wondering if anyone has any experience trying to use SVN with DataManager/DecisionStream?  (SVN is the main SCM tool used in Collabnet)

I see on the Cognos site that the only "officialy supported" tool for this is VSS.  I'm wondering if anyone has tried anything else, and if so how it was configured and works?

Any comments would be appreciated.

Mike

[McDale]

Oh, I see in another spot it is compatible with CVS too.  I believe Collabnet also allows use of CVS repositories.

Anyone set this up before?

[McDale]

Anyone?  Beuller? Beuller?   8)

[akbara]

Hi,

How are you saving the contents to a source control database? The entire catalog is one file.

Unless you have broken it into packages.

The issue our development team have is that one catalog is being developed on by multiple users, so only one person can take out the catalog file at a given time.

[McDale]

Since it's just a single text file can't you just have multiple checkouts with a "diff" merge when committing?

I'm looking now into using SubVersion, as that is the standard for all the teams using TeamForge at our site right now.

I think our biggest challenge is going to be with Framework Manager.  I can think of 6 areas that SCM would be appropriate for us, only one of which may be a problem...  FM

1)Our SQL Server database structure and coding designs – Can be saved in scripts, therefore plain text, therefore no issues with SVN

2)Our Cognos DataManager ETL Catalogs – Can be dumped as a plain-text backup, therefore no issues with SVN  (Can also integrate the GUI with certain SCMs, not sure which) (we would have to figure out how to change datasources based on PROD or DEV deployments though... anyone accomplished this before?)

3)Cube ETL Models & IQD Source Queries – Can be saved as "MDLs" which are plain text and therefore no issues with SVN

4)Random Scripts for Cube Builds, Process Automation, etc... - Are all VBScript or Batch file based, so no issues with SVN there

5)Cognos 8 MetaData Modeling tool (Framework Manager) uses binary files.  No plain text, and is supposed to support only CVS or VSS Here's the issue I think.  Has anyone accomplished this?

6)Our "Core Reports" in Cognos 8 – Can be saved in "XML Specs", which is again plain text, so no issues with SVN

[SMitchell]

Hi,

I'm very interested in this disucussion as well since we are facing the same decision. My concern with moving to VSS is that it's an end of life product already, support ends next year. IBM has yet to announce another "supported" source control platform.

We are currently looking at SubVersion and GIT but have the same concerns as McDale. Has anyone been sucessfull in using source control in DM and FM?

[michal]

we have been using VSS... and have also noticed that his product is end-of-lifed.
the new-and-'improved' VSS with tons more bloat is the Team Foundations Server.... unknown if this will
work with DM currently.

all our inquiries to the IBM support have yielded only one conclusion for us, and that is....
there will be no other source control systems added on to DM.
and thus, we think DM is going to be phased out in favor of IBM's DataStage product.

it is rather frustrating to have to re-learn yet another interface to do the 'same thing' but
the massive entity that is collectively IBM has several, it seems, overlapping products.

while DM is fine for most, we find that we are starting to reach the limits and push it to where it just wont go anymore... source control is a big concern for us and DM's future doesnt look too bright in that respect.

as an aside, DM + VSS + more than a few developers == massive lockout fun  :)