Aldon Introduces Database Change Management Solution

Updated: February 28, 2006

by Alex Woodie

One of the advantages of the iSeries is its integrated database management system. Because development on this platform is done hand in hand with the database, developers don't have to worry about ensuring the integrity of database objects as separate from application logic. That's not the case on most other platforms, and this gave rise to the field of database change management products. Yesterday, Aldon announced the addition of new database change management capabilities to bring more parity between the iSeries and the multiplatform version of its tools.

There's a good reason that not many iSeries professionals hold the title of "DB2/400 administrator." Unless an organization is running dozens of servers, or engrossed in a sophisticated data warehousing project on the boxes, most of the time, there just isn't a good reason to employ someone to take care of the database on the iSeries. IBM has done such a good job integrating the database into the operating system (something that Microsoft is still trying to do with WinFS), that looking after the database is one of the tasks that falls to programmers as a normal part of their jobs, at least in the iSeries world.

Outside of the iSeries world, the database change management field has developed to help programmers ensure that their database schemas are accurate, that changes don't break stored procedures or triggers or other bits of logic that are increasingly being pushed down from the application layer into the database layer. Ensuring commonality between consecutive releases of a database, or even among disparate databases, has become another critical step in the development processes.

Even among iSeries shops, however, there was demand for Aldon to deliver database change management functionality in its Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) suite, which provides source code control and deployment capabilities for the iSeries as well as Unix, Linux, Windows, and mainframe platforms.

"We have always done database change management on the iSeries," says Dan Magid, chief executive officer of Aldon. "What we want to do is fulfill that same vision for our multi platform offerings, [because] it's not nearly as easy to do in the non-iSeries world as it is in the iSeries world."

Magid says his customers have an expectation that tools, such as the multiplatform ALM offering, will work consistently across different platforms. "iSeries customers say 'We need the same functionally that we have on iSeries, for other applications that may not need DB2 on iSeries'" he says. "The problem is we have had a mismatch in function between iSeries and non-iSeries platforms. What we're doing is tightening that up."

This tightening up of functionality has been delivered through a partnership between Aldon and Embarcadero Technologies, a San Francisco-based maker of database development tools and database change management tools. By including integration with Embarcadero's Rapid SQL development tool in the multi-platform version of Aldon Lifecycle Manager, Aldon is enabling customers to monitor database code changes using the same tools, IDEs, and process they use with application source code. The capability supports all major databases, including Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle's eponymous database, Sybase, and others, and was delivered in the last release of the tools, company officials say.

Previously, ALM users could track the development of database objects for Unix and Oracle platforms--which Aldon officials say are the most common platforms where users need separate database change management products--but it required a complicated process that involved first importing the database object as text, managing the code, and then exporting it back to the database. That didn't fly with Aldon's customers, most of whom are iSeries shops that have been spoiled by IBM's good original design. Microsoft, to its credit, provides integrated database change management functionality in its Visual Studio development tool--as long as you deploy the new application on its own SQL Server database, and not Oracle or IBM DB2 UDB, Aldon says.

The biggest advantage of incorporating database change management capability into ALM is developers can use their IDE of choice. Developers today are accustomed to using the versions of ALM that function as a plug-in to IDEs, whether it's WebSphere Development Studio Client (WDSc) or Microsoft Visual Studio, and that means a more seamless multiplatform experience for Aldon customers.

"What we have right now is a full integration using an IDE like Visual Studio or Embarcadero, where developers can immediately connect and we manage those objects," says Modi Ronen, Aldon's director of engineering. "It makes our multiplatform story more robust."

Editor's Note: This article has been corrected since its original publication. Aldon has not entered into an OEM partnership with Embarcadero, as originally stated. The partnership involves sales leads and software integration.