Aldon and SQL Farms Team Up for Change Management

Published: January 23, 2008

by Alex Woodie

Aldon, an established vendor of change management software for application development, and SQL Farms, a developer of change management software for the SQL Server database, this week announced a partnership that will see the companies developing tools that eliminate the barrier separating application lifecycle and database lifecycle activities.

The process of bringing SQL Server database objects to a Windows application can be a tedious and time consuming task. At the same time, it's a critical task that, if done improperly, can lead to bad things down the line. For larger Windows shops facing this dilemma, they may turn to a company like SQL Farms, which specializes in developing software that helps automate the management of database objects and streamlines the movement of databases from development to test to production.

Similarly, Aldon develops tools to help application developers--programmers that work in the worlds of C++, Java, RPG, and COBOL--automate processes that they most go through to maintain an orderly environment, such as checking code in and out of the IDE repository, maintaining consistent versioning, and tracking and merging code changes.

However, up to this point, the work of application programmers and database programmers has been, for the most part, conducted in separate worlds. When it comes time to populate a new application with database objects for test or production purposes, it's been a scary, manual task, akin to working without a safety net.

But now that Aldon and SQL Farms have integrated their respective products--the Lifecycle Manager for Aldon and the SQL Farms Combine for SQL Farms--promoting database objects doesn't have to be such a bloodcurdling task.

Developers and DBAs gain all sorts of advantages as a result of the partnership, including increased visibility, better process management, integrity, and predictability of process. Management and control across multiplatform applications and databases can now be handled from a central place. Hooking the two systems up means better coordination of workflow processes and closer tracking of incidents and change requests.

"SQL Farms is thrilled to work with Aldon. We share the same methodology . . .," says Dr. Omri Bahat, co-founder and director of SQL Farms, which is based in Reston, Virginia. "As a standalone, SQL Farms increases productivity and automation for DBAs, but when you add Aldon to the mix the impact is tripled."

Matt Scholl, president and COO of Emeryville, California-based Aldon, says it's Aldon's goal to help streamline the process management across every facet of IT operations. "Partnering with a company like SQL Farms helps us to deliver on that goal. We're truly impressed by SQL Farm's technology and excited to bring it to the ALM world," he says.

                     Post this story to del.icio.us
               Post this story to Digg
    Post this story to Slashdot