DOORS Project Archive impacts

Hi Folks

We have a need to create an archive (.dpa) of a reasonably sized project (500-1000 modules) and restore it on another database, data will be duplicated and go out of sync but this is not a problem for the purpose we intend.

Due to time constraints we can't afford to wait for an outage window to do the archive and restore process, so my question is:

1) File Locks: Will locked modules be included in the archive and will they prevent the archive from completing or corrupt it?
2) Slow down archive: Will the archiving process be noticeable to DOORs users in terms of access speed and usability? As long modules can still be accessed it is fine. Some slowdown is acceptable.
3) Slow down restore: Will the restoration process on the other database cause the other database to be slow to access?

Thanks
Peter
Peter.Dawson - Wed Oct 14 21:41:24 EDT 2009

Re: DOORS Project Archive impacts
SystemAdmin - Wed Oct 14 22:17:49 EDT 2009

Hi Peter,

See interleaved answers below.

1) File Locks: Will locked modules be included in the archive and will they prevent the archive from completing or corrupt it?

The Archive feature will not let you archive if there are any modules open (edit\read-only) within the Project. The feature will pop-up a warning prompt when this happens.

2) Slow down archive: Will the archiving process be noticeable to DOORs users in terms of access speed and usability? As long modules can still be accessed it is fine. Some slowdown is acceptable.

I have never noticed any major degradation in the performance of the DOORS server when a large archive is being performed but this all depends on how many DOORS clients are hitting the DOORS server with requests, and how powerful the CPU's are on the physical server that is hosting DOORS. BTW - by virtue of my answer to 1 above, all users of the project that will be archived have to close down modules and be out of the project, so that will reduce some of the demand on the server.

3) Slow down restore: Will the restoration process on the other database cause the other database to be slow to access?

Pretty much the same answer as I gave to question 2 above.
Just be aware that DOORS sometimes doesn't clean up it locks 100% - not sure if this has improved in v9.x, but this has certainly been one of those endearing little nuances (AKA an "irritating bug") of earlier versions - use the Tools > Manage Locks option on the DOORS Explorer to check what locks are still in place and who has them (your user account will need "manage database" rights to see the locks of all users). If this shows that locks still exist within the project of interest, despite being absolutely sure that everyone in the project has closed down modules, the Manage Locks tool can let you forcibly remove the locks.

Paul Miller