Last week we learned about a Progress offering called SDP that packages Maven, Subversion, Hudson and Nexus into the Sonic development, testing and deployment process. It seems this offering is not availoable in Australia and, to try and use it, we're on our own. We are already using Subversion and Hudson and had looked at Maven early in the project but, because we were just starting with Java development, did not follow it up at that time. If we'd known about SDP at that time it might have been different. Any advice poeple could offer about changing to the SDP path at this late stage would be appreciated.
I saw that the Maven components for Sonic Workbench were develped by the community.
We heavily rely on Sonic Connect for web services.
Has the Maven integration been extended for Sonic Connect artefacts?
Is the SDP path worthwhile?
What arguments would be relevant for my management to justify a late diversion while we refactor?
Given that we don't know Maven, how long would it take us to come up to speed and refactor (about 70 web services, 200 processes and 20 custom service types)?
Where can I download the latest materials (that include Sonic Connect)?
Thanks
Steve
Hi Steve,
As a first off, SDP is not a Progress Offering. I just wanted to make this statement in order to avoid any issues about supportability.
Having that said, SDP (Service Delivery Platform) is the name for the development-life-cycle methodology that was created by the Community. This consists of the combination of an SCM, Build Tool and Maven environment in combination with Progress/Sonic (ESB - Actional - DXSI).
The reference implementation we use consists of Subversion (SCM), Jenkins (Build tool previously known as Hudson), Nexus (Maven Repository) and Maven. From this list, only Maven is mandatory.
To come to your questions:
1. Yes, the maven-sonicesb-plugin has been extended for Sonic Connect in 8.0.1. We are finalizing the changes in 8.5 as some internal changes occurred. We hope to release them before the year end.
2. The SDP Path is worthwhile as you enable your Sonic Developments to become a part of a Continous Integration Platform with all its advantages and also release and version your artifacts accordingly. You also need to look at the step that follows your Process, this is the SDM Model to deploy your environment. The plugin also assists in building that part of your project.
3. Making the change will definitly help you in shortening your project lifecycle (dev - unit-test - Integration test - QA - Prodcution). It offers a way make team development easier. It provides a way to implement best practices and to use all advantages of a CI environment.
4. The timeline is more difficult to comment on. Provided you know Subversion and Hudson and you already have this environment, getting up to speed on maven should take about 4-5 days. this is a short maven introduction and how to build Sonic Projects. Converting your environment is difficult to say but you don't have to change your currently developed artifacts. It is more about the correct directory structure and having a correct pom file (pom file = build.xml of ant).
If you have further question, please feel free to contact me directly (tdeborge@progress.com)
Regards,
Tim