With version 11 of Sparx‘ Enterprise Architect tool a new cloud feature was introduced to support team working, which previously had been achieved using a shared Database.

When we heard about EA Cloud, both myself and my colleagues got rather excited, thinking that this would be the opportunity to offload the effort of looking after a central DB (making sure backups happened, fine tuning the DB settings and so on) plus maintaining the platform’s patching for security etc. Not only that through the cloud capability we could host the repository that made it very easy for the team to access the repository on the move without needing to have another whole in our corporate firewall etc.

Unfortunately, EA Cloud provides all the software to establish a cloud based repository – which can be used through firewalls etc – HTTPS traffic rather than DB connectors on unusual ports but not the hosting.  This seems to a bit of a missed opportunity for Sparx who already have to deal with all of these points to host 3 demo cloud servers.  So the next step of instantiating a server for a regular on going fee doesn’t seem too challenging, not to mention promotes customer tie in, plus the ability to capture some potentially interesting metrics about its users (e.g. which modelling techniques are most popular etc).  Having looked at Sparx partners they don’t offer the capability either which is a shame.