Impact Analysis

[Mark Davis]

Can you recommend an impact analysis (IA) methodology for ADF applications? We're looking to identify impact within the application as database changes are proposed/implemented.

Currently, we have a sizeable Oracle forms (2000+ forms) application and have developed some new logic using ADF. For IA within Forms (and Oracle Reports, SQR, ProC, etc) we used SQLImpact for many years, well beyond the product's EOL. And now we find ourselves relying on grep'ing the text representations of the Forms (because SQLImpact could no longer communicate with recent Oracle DB versions). This seems to be a satisfactory solution. But I was wondering what methods might be used for ADF code. (For that matter, we've been curious what others use for Forms development, but I realize that is off topic here).

TIA,

Mark

[Florin Marcus]

Hi Mark,

There is no such tool (plugin) in ADF for impact analysis.

The closest thing you get is "Explore Dependencies" feature in JDeveloper.

The way I see it , "Impact Analysis" is essential for 'flat' architectures like Oracle Forms, where you get a lot of duplicated SQL code across application.

With a well-designed ADF application (no matter how large) change impact prediction should be straightforward, since ADF is all about reuse, perfect  framework for  building  large systems.

There are few principles to look at, when building large ADF systems:

1. A Entity Object definition should be one-to-one with a Table definition in database. No duplicated Entities pointing to the same table.

2. View Objects should be based on Entity Objects (with least exceptions as possible).

3. Repeating functionality should be encapsulated in reusable Task Flows. 

4. Each task flow should be based on a task flow template.

5. Same UI should be based on page templates. 

Lets take a concrete example:

When a column is removed in a db table, I would check in how many View Objects use the corresponding Entity Object (Explore Dependencies). Furthermore, I would check in how many fragments (pages) the view objects is being used (Explore Dependencies). Third, I would check if  any View Object is used as LOV (list of values).

Cheers,

Florin

 

 

--
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the ADF Enterprise Methodology Group (http://groups.google.com/group/adf-methodology). To unsubscribe send email to adf-methodolo...@googlegroups.com
 
All content to the ADF EMG lies under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Any content sourced must be attributed back to the ADF EMG with a link to the Google Group (http://groups.google.com/group/adf-methodology).

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ADF Enterprise Methodology Group" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to adf-methodolo...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Rahul Ganesh]

Mark, You Could try CAST  AIP see below links. AIP generally supports J2EE technologies including JSF but not sure of Oracle ADF. It has ability to build meta model of your application structure,  and identify link. It does both  Static analysis and Structural Analysis.

Note that its a licensed product not open source

http://www.castsoftware.com/products/enlighten-software-documentation-visual-knowledge-base.

http://www.castsoftware.com/resources/document/brochures/download/cast-for-oracle-applications?ifr=1

[Greg Stachnick]

Hi Mark,

If you are an Eclipse user, Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse (OEPE) provides impact analysis for ADF through its AppXRay feature. As you develop your ADF application, AppXRay scans and monitors the physical and logical ADF artifacts (taskflows, data controls, adf components, descriptor files, resource bundles, etc) and uses this information to drive code completion, validation, navigation, and refactoring. You can visualize the dependencies through the dependency viewer (a feature that was ported to Jdev as Florin describes) to get a sense of how artifacts are related. When you refactor a variable, data control, or any other ADF artifact, AppXRay will show you which other files need to be updated and execute the changes.

Hope this helps.
Thanks,
Greg Stachnick
Product Management in Oracle Development Tools