Re: How to CM an Oracle DB

Mark <mso_at_doubled.com> wrote in article <mso-2510971013210001_at_m189.doubled.com>...
> Hello,
>
> I have been doing Configuration Management for over a year now. Recently,
> I have been put on a new project as the CM Manager. This project uses an
> Oracle DB and uses Oracle financials. Oracle Designer2000 and
 Developer2000
> are used to work on/develop the DB.

That's a full year's more CM experience than most CM Managers I know :)

>
> I have encountered two issues regarding the above:
>
> 1) The politial issue is that the DBA and Oracle developers feel all CM
> should be concerned with is keeping track of the DB patches (which they
> maintain themselves in their environment). This scope of CM is not
> anywhere close to being acceptable. If CM is to manage (and be
> responsible for) the configuration of the system (in system test and in
> production), the database needs to be CM'd just like everything else,
> especially since its the heart of the system.
>

As you would know, the primary purpose of CM activity is to create full reproducability. Obviously, these people are doing the bare minimum possible.

A complete change management effort for your database (as well as the developers' applications) can often be a very labor intensive task.

Procedures in standards such as MIL-STD-973 (military CM), EIA/IS-649 (CM), EIA/IS-632 (Systems Engineering), ISO-900x (quality), AS 3563.1 (Australian software quality management requirements - very useful) often will give an indication of the basic requirements and a general idea of tasks that should be performed.

In the end, it comes down to your responsibility as the CM Manager to decide which procedures the DBA and developers must follow.

> 2) The functional issue is that I do not know how to CM a DB. I cannot
> find any resourses that describe how a database should be CM'd. The
> books I have go into painful detail about SCM, but don't mention
> anything about databases.
>

It would depend on the degree to which you wish to document the database. Just using complete and delta exports, specifications, change notices, version description documents and CCB documentation may be suficient. The DBA and developers might just start to appreciate the requirement for a complete CM effort if they are required to maintain variations for alternate functional capabilities.

> Does anyone know of any resourses I can refer to or can anyone provide
> any type of help or suggestion regarding CM of databases?
>

As well as the above mentioned standards, I will occasionally refer to:

Software Configuration Management
Coordination for Team Productivity
- Wayne A Babich

Software Configuration Management
- J K Buckle
(quite old, and not very relevant)

I hope this is of assistance.

-- 
Shane Newton
shane_at_logistic.com.au
Analyst Programmer
'CM-COM', 'CM-973', 'OCM-973', 'OCM', 'CM-WorkfloW',
'CM-Softtree', 'Drawdex', 'PBM', 'CM-649', 'CM-QS'