Oracle Designer and Oracle SCM (Repository)

FAQ - April 2004

A Designer Maintenance Schedule is available on OTN. As an addendum to that document, this FAQ will be updated to reflect any frequently asked questions regarding Designer and its future.

Questions

Certification

• Is Designer 10 g certified for both Oracle9 i Database and Oracle Database 10 g?
• Is Designer 10 g (9.0.4) certified for both Oracle9 i AS release 2 in addition to Oracle Application Server 10 g (9.0.4)?
• Will Designer be certified against new windows platforms, such as Windows 2003?

Functionality

• Why is no new functionality being delivered with Designer?
• I use Oracle Designer for database schema modeling, generation and maintenance. Should I be planning to move off Designer?
• Will I be able to continue to use Designer for my Forms generation?
• Will I be able to continue to use Designer for my Web PL/SQL generation?
• Will JDeveloper provide the same features for Data Modeling as Designer?

Oracle SCM

• I use Designer for its underlying SCM capability. Does this statement include SCM? What are the plans for SCM?
• I use SCM, but I don't use the application and database development tools at all. Do I have to incur all the overhead of a full Designer client and server install?
• I Use SCM with JDeveloper only, does this statement affect me?
• I use Designer for its SCM capabilities and plan to start all future development using JDeveloper. Is there an SCM upgrade path?
• Can I do Versioning and Configuration Management in JDeveloper in the same way as I do in Designer?

Upgrades and Migration Strategy

• What is the migration strategy for Oracle Designer customers?
• I am on Designer 1.3.2 (or 2.1.2 or 6.0) and have planned to upgrade to Designer 6.0 and migrate to Designer 9 i . What do you recommend?
• I currently generate Forms 6i client server and have no plans to upgrade . What are the implications if this message?
• I have a large investment in the metadata in my Designer repository. Will I be able to migrate and preserve that investment?

General

• The maintenance schedule mentioned above feels as if Oracle is no longer concerned about Designer. Does Oracle plan to stop supporting Designer?

Tools Statement of Direction and related documents

Answers

Certification

• Is Designer 10 g certified for both Oracle9 i Database and Oracle Database 10 g?
• Is Designer 10g (9.0.4) certified for both Oracle9iAS release 2 in addition to Oracle Application Server 10g (9.0.4)?
• Will Designer be certified against new windows platforms, such as Windows 2003?

• Is Designer 10 g (9.0.4 ) certified for both Oracle9 i Database and Oracle Database 10 g?
  For the initial release of Oracle Designer 10 g (9.0.4) in Oracle Developer Suite10 g (9.0.4), Designer is not certified for Oracle Database 10 g . However, Oracle will quickly follow the Developer Suite 10 g (9.0.4) release with a Designer maintenance release (release 9.0.4.4) that is certified for installation for both Oracle9 i Database and Oracle Database 10 g instances. Designer 10g (9.0.4.4) maintenance release is targeted for release at the end of April.

• Is Designer 10 g (9.0.4 ) certified for Oracle9iAS release 2, in addition to Oracle Application Server 10 g (9.0.4)?
  This is important from an Oracle Forms perspective. Oracle Forms 10 g (9.0.4) will only be certified for Oracle Application Server 10 g (9.0.4)

• Will Designer be certified against new windows platforms, such as Windows 2003?
  Oracle intends to continue certifying Designer against the latest windows platforms, continuing its current platform certification strategy.

Functionality

• Why is no new functionality being delivered with Designer?
• I use Oracle Designer for database schema modeling, generation and maintenance. Should I be planning to move off Designer?
• Will I be able to continue to use Designer for my Forms generation?
• Will I be able to continue to use Designer for my Web PL/SQL generation?
• Will JDeveloper provide the same features for Data Modeling as Designer?

• Why is no new functionality being delivered with Designer?
  With the onset of the 10 g products, both for the application server and for the tools, Oracle reviewed the products it delivers. The emergence of new technologies, specifically J2EE and UML which are rapidly gaining market acceptance, has influenced the direction Oracle is taking with Designer. With J2EE as the preferred platform, component based, model driven and declarative techniques are provided by and developed in JDeveloper. In other words Oracle sees JDeveloper as being the replacement product for Designer over time.

• I use Oracle Designer for database schema modeling, generation and maintenance. Should I be planning to move off Designer?
  No, you should continue to use Designer. It is currently more powerful than the JDeveloper database modeling and generation capability. In the future Oracle will expand JDeveloper's capability in this area and plans to provide a mechanism to migrate database metadata from Oracle Designer to Oracle JDeveloper, allowing you to preserve your investment in Designer.

• Will I be able to continue to use Designer for my Forms generation?
  Yes. Designer 10g (9.0.4) will generate Forms 10g (9.0.4) and Oracle will continue to certify Designer against the current forms patches.

• Will I be able to continue to use Designer for my Web PL/SQL generation?
  Yes, Designer will generate PL/SQL for the database and Oracle will continue to certify Designer against the current Application Server release.

• Will JDeveloper provide the same features for Data Modeling as Designer?
  Oracle is expanding JDeveloper's capability in this area. Already the tool provides powerful PL/SQL code editing functionality and online database support. 9.0.5 JDeveloper supports UML-based DB modeling and DDL generation. It supports Tables, Columns, Keys and Constraints. This has been in preview since August 2003. Production planned April 2004. The next increment will include support for Views, Indexes, Sequences and Synonyms, plus additional reconciliation for Tables, Columns, Constraints and Indexes. There are also plans to include User-defined types, Object Tables and XML Types, and to preview all this functionality in a release during 2004. Following that there are plans to add Procedures, Functions, Packages, Materialized Views and Materialized View Logs, and to rapidly extend JDeveloper's database modeling to all the significant features of the Oracle database and to track these as they grow. In addition support for third party database modeling and generation through JDBC are included.

Oracle SCM

• I use Designer for its underlying SCM capability. Does this statement include SCM? What are the plans for SCM?
• I use SCM, but I don't use the application and database development tools at all. Do I have to incur all the overhead of a full Designer client and server install?
• I Use SCM with JDeveloper only, does this statement affect me?
• I use Designer for its SCM capabilities and plan to start all future development using JDeveloper. Is there an SCM upgrade path?
• Can I do Versioning and Configuration Management in JDeveloper in the same way as I do in Designer?

• I use Designer for its underlying SCM capability. Does this statement include SCM? What are the plans for SCM?
  The Designer Repository (Oracle SCM) is integral functionality and is considered part of the product. The maintenance schedule includes Oracle SCM in that Oracle will continue bug fixing the repository in the same way that bugs are fixed in the client tools. Designer and the Repository will be released in regular maintenance release cycles as described.

• I use SCM, but I don't use the application and database development tools at all. Do I have to incur all the overhead of a full Designer client and server install?
  No, a cut down version of Designer, encompassing only the SCM capability, is available on OTN to licensed Designer users. This will be refreshed periodically to include relevant bug fixes from the full product.

• I Use SCM with JDeveloper only, does this statement affect me?
  You can continue to use the cut down version of SCM described above and made available on a regular basis. From JDeveloper 10.1.3, the SCM extension will not be integral to the JDeveloper install, but will be available as a download from OTN with the other JDeveloper extensions.
  JDeveloper10g (9.0.5) is the last release of JDeveloper that will incorporate support for OSCM in the product. The next release will only provide OSCM support as an optional OTN download.

• I use Designer for its SCM capabilities and plan to start all future development using JDeveloper. Is there an SCM upgrade path?
  As mentioned in the maintenance release document, Oracle is not planning further development for Oracle SCM and as such recommends all new development with JDeveloper makes use of open source tools such as CVS.

• Can I do Versioning and Configuration Management in JDeveloper in the same way as I do in Designer?
  JDeveloper offers different choices for your configuration and team development environment. You can continue to use Oracle SCM with the JDeveloper extension or you can use open source tools such as CVS.

Upgrades and Migration Strategy

• What is the migration strategy for Oracle Designer customers?
• I currently use Designer 1.3.2 (or 2.1.2 or 6.0) and was planning to upgrade to Designer 6.0 and migrate to Designer 9 i . What do you recommend?
• I currently generate Forms 6i client server and have no plans to upgrade . What are the implications if this message?
• I have a large investment in the metadata in my Designer repository. Will I be able to migrate and preserve that investment?

• What is the migration strategy for Oracle Designer customers?
  There is no need for Designer customers to move away from Designer. Oracle is continuing to support and bug fix Designer and will continue to have regular maintenance releases of Oracle Designer 10 g (9.0.4). For those who value model driven development and who want to start J2EE development, the Designer Business Component Generator generates JDeveloper ADF Business Components. The development teams are working on a metadata migration path to enable users to move from Designer to JDeveloper and to continue model driven development in a Java and J2EE development environment. In addition to this already available functionality, Oracle is also working on migrating database metadata to be staged over coming releases.

• I currently use Designer 1.3.2 (or 2.1.2 or 6.0) and was planning to upgrade to Designer 6.0 and migrate to Designer 9 i. What do you recommend?
  Once you have upgraded to Designer 6.0, Oracle recommends you migrate to Oracle Designer 10 g** . The functionality available in Designer 6 i and 9 i Designer is the same as that offered in Designer 10g . A move to the latest version brings the you to a supported release with all the new functionality offered in the Server Generator, the application generation tools such, as the Forms and the WebServer Generators, and versioning and the configuration management capabilities. You should also be in a better position to transition your legacy information from Designer to JDeveloper, as the development teams are working on utilities to ease this flow.
  **Please review the Migration Guide available on OTN for further assistance in this area.

• I currently generate Forms 6 i Client Server and have no plans to upgrade. What are the implications if this message?
  Following Forms 6 i desupport, you may elect to continue to use Forms 6 i under extended support. In the same way, you can generate Forms 6 i using Designer 6 i under extended support. Please see Support Note 239742.1 on Metalink and the Tools Statement of Direction (due for release on OTN)

• I have a large investment in the metadata in my Designer repository. Will I be able to migrate and preserve that investment?
  Oracle introduced the Designer to BC4J Generator into JDeveloper 9.0.4. This allows users to browse module definitions in a Designer repository from within JDeveloper, extract metadata and transform it to define ADF/BC4J business objects - the 'model' layer of an Oracle ADF/BC4J application. In the planned Fall 2004 preview, in addition to extending the JDeveloper database modeling capabilities (see the question concerning database modeling), Oracle will add the capability to browse schema definitions in Designer and migrate them to JDeveloper. Oracle will pay close attention to customer needs and if other specific migrations are clearly of importance to the Designer customer base, they will be scheduled in.

General

• The maintenance schedule mentioned above feels as if Oracle is no longer concerned about Designer. Does Oracle plan to stop supporting Designer?

• The maintenance schedule mentioned above feels as if Oracle is no longer concerned about Designer. Does Oracle plan to stop supporting Designer?
  Oracle has a dedicated Designer development and quality assurance team. There are no plans for desupporting Designer. Current plans are to continue with regular releases of Designer as part of the Developer Suite and to continue to certify against related software, such as Forms and the Database.

Related Statements of Direction: