Using Archi in a multi user setting

Introduction

 

I haven been using Archi quite some time now, and I really like it.  It is reasonably fast, easy to understand has a clean user interface, and it is cheap (well it is free).  I use it to quickly model small stuff in order to support a design or migration.  I (and others with me) believe that the largest shortcoming of Archi is the lack of multi user support.  Using archi in a multi user environment is not possible out of the box.  Archi writes to a file,  when you edit the file you have the file locked on the file system.  All changes are saved to that file, including all errors that were not cleaned up correctly.  On the occasions I had to model together with colleges, we used EA from sparx.  On those occasions I felt that I got lost in a complex interface, stuffed with things I did not need.  Appart from that, working over the VPN, connected to the central database, I did not enjoy the fast experience Archi itself.

While frequently browsing the Archi forums I found out that someone has created an Archi plugin that claimed to write the model to a central GIT repository, allowing the multi use capabilities of GIT to be available for Archi.  Well done sir, but git?  Isn’t that extremely complicated for someone who is not a developer? Besides it is in beta, and there are rumours that one day Archi will support multi user.  While several people on the forums report success with this plugin, there seems no user friendly manual on how to get started.

A few months ago a customer who uses Archi to model the infrastructure and applications, “Look, I will have for a few months some students and they will be working hard to model our as-is as much as possible, can you give them some support?”

Multi user became a requirement at this point..

Goals

Experimenting

Being able to experiment with the full model content without altering the stable as-is state.

 

Releasing

Being able to model a new project with the full model without altering the stable as-is state but with the capability to add the sub model to the as-is state.

 

History tracking

Being able to keep a history of approved changes, being able to return to previous state if required.

Multi user collaboration

Being able to work on the same model with multiple users at the same time without blocking each other.

 

Plateau modelling

Being able to model the proposed state of several plateau architectures during a long term, multi stage project / programme.

 

Before we start

In this series of blogs I will be explaining how you can combine GIT, Archi and GRAFICO  to achieve just that.  We will be using tools are free of charge.

This next posts will be written assuming that you know Archimate (the language), Archi (the tool) and Git.

 

Archimate

From now on, if I talk about Archimate, I refer to the modeling language

The latets version (at this point) is version 3 http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/archimate3-doc/

I myself haven been using version 2 all the time http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/archimate2-doc/

 

Archi

From now on, if I talk about Archi I refer to the tool http://www.archimatetool.com. If I talk about Archimate, I refer to the modelling language.

For this series we will be using Archi 4 witch is currently still beta.  Archi 4 will be the first version to suport archimate 3.  The reason for this is that the latest version of GRAFICO is developed for Archi 4.  It does not work with the current version of Archi.

 

If you are using Archi 3 and you would like to try 4, take a copy of your Archi 3 model before opening it with Archi 4, just as the warning on the download page says, it alters the file, and you probably cannot open it with Archi 3 anymore

GRAFICO

The plugin for for Archi that exports the entire model to Git. https://github.com/archi-contribs/archi-grafico-plugin.  The latest plugin version only works with Archi 4.  If you must stick to version 3, you should use an older version of the plugin, (version 0.2 I believe)

 

Git

If you are new to git: try this tutorial first,  it helps you to understand how git works. http://rypress.com/tutorials/git/index

The tutorial uses command line git, so I suggest you use that for the tutorial: https://git-scm.com

As an architect you want to make stuff visual, so throughout this series I will use Sourcetree, witch can be found here: https://www.sourcetreeapp.com.  Sourcetree is available for both Windows and Mac, does not cost money the way we will use it (you pay with your email address).  And is created by https://www.atlassian.com/software, a well known company.

 

Next articles

https://gevaertw.wordpress.com/2017/01/17/archi-multi-user-pt1-export-import-to-git/

https://gevaertw.wordpress.com/2017/01/21/archi-multi-user-pt2-using-branches/

https://gevaertw.wordpress.com/2017/01/26/archi-multi-user-pt3-using-remote-branches/

https://gevaertw.wordpress.com/2017/02/18/archi-multi-user-pt4-preparing-bitbucket-server/

(this section will be updated when the posts are ready)