The Basics

1. What is dbMaestro TeamWork? What is it used for? To what purpose?
dbMaestro TeamWork is a database change management solution. Its purpose is to close a significant gap in the Software Change Management (SCM) world. It feels like any other SCM solution you might have, but is vertically designed to facilitate the database world:


1. It extends SCM to the database world to ensure that your current SCM processes are actually covering all of your day-to-day development activities.
2. It empowers team collaboration and enforces your update process to ensure that no coding overrides or out of process updates occur.
3. It synchronizes teamwork
4. It mitigates deployment risk. Why code and recode your updates or deployments between your development, testing and production environments? Use automation to create requirement based, consistent, proofed, update packages to lower your risk of having to do any additional manual coding. You definitely don’t want to waste time figuring out why a production update has failed only to find a piece of code was missing from your manually created change lists…
5. It plugs the regulation compliance hole – an audit trail is always a good thing to have. Either for regulation proposes, or for actual day-to-day scenarios – so you actually know who did what, when and why…

2. Who needs dbMaestro TeamWork?
This is very easy to define:


1. Do you have an Oracle database?
2. Do you have a development process on top of your Oracle database? (Meaning that not all of your database usage is based on 3rd party software).


If you answered, “Yes” to both questions, you may need dbMaestro TeamWork. How much you really need it is dependent on how much change your database undergoes, and how many developers and DBAs are involved in the process.

The more you have of these two parameters, the more likely it is that you need to have things managed in a controlled and structured manner. Therefore, the more likely that you will truly benefit from having dbMaestro as your database development tool.

3. I already have an SCM solution implemented. Do I need dbMaestro TeamWork?
Well, actually yes -- very much so. Despite having invested a lot of time and money in your SCM, chances are that a large portion of your code - meaning your database - is still not managed properly. Either you can't be sure that whatever changed is manually stored in your SCM as scripts, or your development teams or DBAs may actually be overriding each other's code, and your deployments are always taking too much time and effort to create and debug…

This is because traditional SCMs don’t do databases…

Please refer to the next Q&A paragraph.

General

4. So, what exactly is dbMaestro TeamWork doing with my database?
1. dbMaestro creates a versioning repository for your database objects (tables, indexes, foreign keys, views, procedures, packages etc.).
2. Every time an object is to be changed, you will be required to perform a "check out" action – i.e. declare you are performing a change on that particular object. After making the actual change (e.g., adding a column to a table, or changing a flow of logic in a procedure), you will be required to "check in" the changes – while saving a new revision of the object in your version repository.
3. This will enable you to analyze changes over time, know who is doing what to the database, rollback to any revision, create live databases based on information from your version repository, and basically perform all of the functions you are used to doing with your traditional SCM solution.
4. And – manage lookup, reference or metadata content of a table.

5. Why do I need to manage the content of a table in a change management solution?
1. In many cases the content of a parameter, lookup or metadata table will influence the behavior of the application you are developing. This is a part of your version update, and must be treated as any other change to code or database structure. Keeping a complete set of updates but neglecting relevant data changes will lead to bugs and other software malfunctions.
2. You can tell dbMaestro TeamWork which tables are crucial to your application behavior, and enable "content management" to only these tables.
3. Once you do this, you will be required to "check out" and "check in" table content, in order to change the table's data (insert, update and delete values).

6. Why the need to enforce change management? Why lock down database objects from being updated?
1. A database is a shared central resource, unlike Java or .Net projects where code is copied to the developer's workstation. Being a shared resource means that many people might need to perform updates to it simultaneously. You need to be sure that no code overrides occur (someone starts editing an object and someone else is saving his/her changes on top of it), thereby losing code, and creating bugs).
2. You really need to know Who did What When and Why – in order to create a true to reality version repository and the most accurate audit trail.
3. You need to make sure no 'out of process' updates are performed, and then later on skipped while deploying changes.
4. You need to enforce the change process. Change process enforcement is achieved by locking down all database-managed objects. This means that you can't just open the editor and slap on a new column to your table, or just fix the bug that needs fixing. You need to log your changes; you need to make sure no one does anything concurrently to the same object; you need to be able to have a complete history of each change. We will lock the database for you and force everyone to do "check out" and "check in" actions in order to introduce change. The rest will follow automatically…

7. Can I learn about dbMaestro TeamWork’s architecture?
Please see this link for an architecture diagram: http://www.dbmaestro.com/dbmaestro/607.aspx

I am a Change Manager, and I have a few questions:

8. I don’t have an SCM implemented. Can dbMaestro work as a standalone product?
dbMaestro is fully functional without an SCM working by its side. Process, change sets, activates and labels can be set within an internal module, replacing external SCM solution if absent.

9. I already have an SCM implemented in my company. Is that redundant now?
Most definitely not. You know you need to protect your investment – a lot of time, effort and thought has been put into implementation of your SCM. dbMaestro TeamWork is a solution designed to work hand-in-hand with your traditional SCM solution. It links and leverages existing processes and information to ensure that organizational SCM reaches its full potential.

10. What is the linkage between my SCM and dbMaestro TeamWork? How does it benefit me?
dbMaestro TeamWork links to the traditional SCM in several ways:


1. Requirement management
2. Change sets, activities
3. Labels or baselines
4. Process or requirement based deployment


This means that whenever someone makes a database change, it is linked to the SCM's activities or work items and labels - creating an end-to-end process covering both application code and database code. This can be used to later deploy database changes by feature or requirement as well as labels – exactly as can be done with your current SCM.

11. Is information replicated between my SCM and dbMaestro TeamWork?
No, the information is not replicated - It is linked. The linkage is your SCM's activities, change sets and labels.

12. I have automation and scripts in my SCM, designed to streamline day-to-day work. Does dbMaestro provide a command line interface, or other SDK support?
Yes, dbMaestro supports both command line and SDK support.

Process

13. I'm using Eclipse/Visual Studio/PL-SQL developer/Oracle developer. Does dbMaestro TeamWork replace my working environment?
No, dbMaestro does not replace your editors or IDEs. You will be able to work with your current tools, while utilizing dbMaestro's plug-ins or generic side bar to control the change process or perform change management tasks.

14. What does the work process flow look like once I have implemented dbMaestro TeamWork?
1. On initial usage – dbMaestro will create a base version (or a label). This will act as a baseline for the following changes:
2. Tasks will be allocated to your team of developers and DBAs (or ADBAs), each will be performing changes, creating revisions in your version repository, and linking them to the specific tasks (adding feature X, fixing bug Y etc…) – in the same way they do for application code.
3. Once a work cycle has ended, the Change Manager or project manager will decide what features or group of bugs will be promoted to testing or integration environments (and later on to production).
4. A deployment package will be generated from the build engine of your SCM, and from the deployment manager of dbMaestro TeamWork, based on the terminology set by the SCM.
5. A new label will be set, and a new work cycle initiated.

15. dbMaestro TeamWork has multiple facilities. Who uses which tool?
The guidelines are:


1. The Management Studio will be used for determining what is being managed and how (set and configure the system), perform change management tasks and generate reports. Users of the Management Studio are the project manager, DBA, and Change Manager.
2. The Side Bar & Plug-ins are used for day-to-day change management tasks (check in & out, view history, rollbacks, etc.). Users of these tools are the ADBAs and developers (people actually making the changes to the database).
3. The Deployment Manager will be used to determine what will be deployed (based on SCM or internal activity lists), deal with conflicts, and create an autonomous package for deployment. Users of the Deployment Manager are the project manager, Change Manager and DBAs (the deployment package can be run by any authorized and privileged person).

The DBAs also have questions!

16. Does TeamWork influence performance?
1. From a practical point of view – it doesn’t.
2. It takes about a hundredth of a second (depending on your hardware, and the load on your Oracle database) to validate policy enforcement.
3. Usually changes to database structure are done in an online process while working with an editor or a case tool. Even if with TeamWork it takes 10 times longer, it will still be substantially less than one second and will not impact your developers or DBAs

17. Does dbMaestro TeamWork install an agent on my database?
1. dbMaestro TeamWork is an agent-less technology.
2. To utilize a part of the dbMaestro TeamWork behavior and to make sure everything is run within the shortest possible time, a minor footprint is added to every managed database server – all based on completely standard database schema (nothing is changed in your schemas – we simply add a new schema of our own).

18. OK, so let's say I want to manage my production server. Can dbMaestro TeamWork function with no footprint at all?
Yes. dbMaestro TeamWork can take snapshot labels of your database without anything installed on it. So, in case you need to verify that your production server has not changed since your previous update, or if you are looking for the reason something is malfunctioning (let's say someone dropped an index and forgot to put it back by mistake) – TeamWork can validate and pinpoint the exact change that needs your attention.

19. I heard about your three-way analysis and merge ability. How is it different from the traditional compare and sync tools I know?
Well – actually it is very different, both from a technical point of view, and from a practical point of view.
You can get much more productivity, and make much better informed, and safer decisions based on your three-way analysis mechanism. Please read about this here.

20. Does dbMaestro manage the server level objects?
Well – not yet…
We do intend to provide assistance for DBAs to manage the system side of things. Follow our announcements… Please fill in the form on the right side of the blog, and we will keep you updated

Technical – OK, so what do I need to do?

21. How can I test drive dbMaestro TeamWork? Is there an easy way to do this?
1. The quickest way to feel your way around is to take a test drive. No installation required. Just get a user and password and login to one of our test-drive machines. You will be able to play with dbMaestro TeamWork with zero effort on your side…
   
   Please fill in this form, so we can send you your login credentials: http://www.dbmaestro.com/dbmaestro/606.aspx
2. And, of course, you can install and evaluate it in your own environment. See more details in the next question.

22. I want to implement dbMaestro TeamWork. What do I need to do? What do I need to prepare?
1. Firstly you need to select the project you are going to evaluate dbMaestro on. Chose something that has changes, new requirements. Something "live".
2. Select the team that is going to do the evaluation. Make sure they are open and cooperative. No use in evaluating a product when the team thinks this is going to be a waste of time…. Sounds simple – but these are the most important steps to ensure a good evaluation of any product…
3. Installation – the installation itself is very easy. You need to install the application server and at least one client side tools environment. This process should not take more than a few minutes.
4. Last thing to do, before you start playing with TeamWork – watch a few demos of our "Getting Started" and "How-To" videos. This will ensure you waste no time figuring stuff out… A list of our guided tours can be found here: http://www.dbmaestro.com/teamworkmovies/dbmaestroteamworkdemo.html

23. So how do I install TeamWork?
You need to allocate a server for the dbMaestro application server (a virtual machine will work just fine). Make sure you have sufficient privileges on your database machine and you meet our prerequisites list. A download page for the setup files and detailed prerequisites list can be found here: http://www.dbmaestro.com/dbmaestro/22/1/523.aspx

My boss asks:

24. How much does dbMaestro TeamWork cost?
Click here to contact us for pricing:
http://www.dbmaestro.com/dbmaestro/1/24/489.aspx

25. OK! I'm convinced I need something like dbMaestro TeamWork. Are there any competing solutions?
The list of our competition is short:


Microsoft has a solution for this problem. It is called Visual Studio Team System database edition (aka DB Dude). So – if you are using VSTS as your SCM, and you don’t need content versioning or change policy enforcement – go check it out.
We will be waiting for you to return…