Business Objects Lifecycle Manager

It looks like Business Objects may have seen the ‘light’ on version and source control.

As you may be aware, Business Objects has never included version control functionality into its software. The moment you release a report into production, that’s it, no turning back. (Unless of course you done the smart thing and took a backup of the original report or universe). This led to a number of third party software companies to develop Business Objects versioning and migration software. The three third party tools of note are Noad’s EQM, Version Manager from Infosol and Version Manager from ebi experts.

Business Objects has now decided to integrate version control and migration functionality into its new XI 3 software. Currently available as an open beta on the XI 3.1 platform (itself a beta), Business Objects LifeCycle Manager can be downloaded from the following link:

http://beta.businessobjects.com/lcm

This product allows users to manage promotions between environments, version control and rollback functionallity and dependency checking. It also appears that there is a scheduling feature which allows for releases out of hours. To be honest, I think it is safer to release manually to avoid the potential problem of releasing something to production that you shouldn’t have. But then again, some users are bound to find this handy.

This looks like an interesting development from the part of Business Objects. I am looking to download the beta and will feedback my findings.

I’m not sure however, how this sits with the third party developers. Obviously they have filled an obvious gap in the market with their products. I’ve used EQM extensively and find it to be a very good product. However, if the Lifecycle Manager is any good, and if the pricing model for this new product is competitive, or dare I say it, bundled in for FREE, then these third party developers will need to slash their prices or find they no longer have a market for their product.

Addendum – I’ve just read that this product will be part of BOE with no separate license required.

XI Release Management/Version Control

What do you use for release management/version control?

We currently use EQM from NoadBI. This product allows us to migrate reports and universes via the EQM interface and allows us to track version numbers and add comments with changes. It also has a suite of built in ‘audit’ reports.

We’ve also used PVCS in the past.

There is also a product called Version Manager/Enterprise Manager from ebi experts. I haven’t used this, but I’ve heard good comments about it.

What do you use?