Year: 2016

It’s been a little over three months since we released Gitora 2.0 and the first success stories have already started to surface. Here is one of them:

Rhenus Logistics, the leading logistics company from Germany uses Gitora to manage their Oracle Database.

Problem

Rhenus IT uses both Java and PL/SQL to serve their users and customers. They have a team of about 10 PL/SQL developers. The team manages more than 20,000 database packages, views, functions, procedures, object types and triggers spread over 30+ database schemas.

Rhenus IT wanted to move to a continuous delivery environment in which they can be more agile and deliver solutions to the business faster. Managing the PL/SQL code was the hardest piece of the puzzle.

Solution

After experimenting with other solutions in the market, Rhenus decided to move forward with Gitora.

Gitora enabled Rhenus Developers to:

• Use Git, the prominent open source version control system used by millions of developers.

• Move their database code between development and various staging databases automatically.

• Move code between source and target databases very fast because Gitora only executes differences between source and target databases, without comparing the code bases in both databases first (which can be very time consuming).

• Enforce check-in, check-out of database objects at the database level.

• Automate build process for the database code using Gitora API’s.

• Implement an affordable continuous delivery solution compared to alternatives.

Michiel Arentsen, the System Architect at Rhenus who implemented the solution at Rhenus has started an excellent blog in which he writes about his Gitora implementation. We highly recommend you to check it out. Below are the list of blog posts he wrote which should be very useful to anyone who is currently implementing Gitora at his/her company:

Using Gitora in PL/SQL Developer dual or multi session mode

Automatically log in to Gitora when connecting to Oracle

A fast way to load your database objects to a Gitora repository

Automatically add new database objects to Gitora

Start Gitora as a Windows service

We are happy to announce that Gitora 2.1 is available for download. Along with a few bug fixes, Gitora 2.1 enables PL/SQL developers to use Git Tags to label any commit point in the Git repository.

Tags can be used for a variety of use cases but the most common one is to label a Commit ID for specific versions of the code base such as tagging a specific commit with the label “Version 2.0”.

It is very easy to create tags in Gitora. Simply, go to the local commands menu, select “Create Tag” menu item under “Tags”.

 

A dialog shows up.

Enter the name of your tag (no spaces). Enter the commit ID you’d like to attach it to. If you’d like to attach your tag to the HEAD i.e. the most recent commit in the current branch, leave the Commit ID field empty. You may also use a branch name instead of an actual Commit ID.

Click OK to create the tag. If the tag is attached to a commit visible in the Gitora repository browser, it will show up in the Gitora Application.

To delete a tag, select the Delete a Tag menu item under the Tags menu, enter the name of the Tag you’d like to delete and click OK.

Tags are available in Gitora 2.1 Professional Edition. Enjoy! 🙂

Kind Regards,
The Gitora  Team

We hosted a webinar about Gitora last week. It received more than 400 signups and over 120 people have attended the event. The interest to the webinar was so high that we hit the 100 attendee limit of the webinar software we are using. Thanks to everyone who attended and helped us to do a better webinar with their questions and comments.

If you could not make it to the webinar, you can watch it or view the slides below. The webinar consists of two parts. In the first part, we talk about transition strategies to move an organization from manual version control for PL/SQL to version control with Gitora. In the second part, we showed the capabilities of Gitora with a live demo.

OK, so you read the web site, downloaded Gitora, installed it successfully, created a few test repositories, added a few packages, issued a few Git commands from the Gitora UI. And it all works fine. But now what? How do you actually start using Gitora in your development life cycle? How can you actually benefit from it?

In order to show you how you can use Gitora in your daily work we are hosting a free webinar on November 22nd. You can register at: http://www.prohuddle.com/webinars/Gitora/Version_Control_for_PLSQL_Developers.php

During the webinar we will cover the following topics with a live demo:

• How can you use Gitora to manage your PL/SQL code base?
• Why is using version control with PL/SQL is hard and how does Gitora help?
• Why is Gitora the best solution for the problem?
• How will using version control with PL/SQL will help you?

The webinar is free but space is limited. Sign up today.

Kind Regards,
Yalim Gerger
Founder

 

We created a solid installer for Gitora which has a very high success rate. However, IT environment can be very complex and restrictive (and understandably so). So having an installer does not work for everyone and every organization.

Therefore, today we are making the Gitora 2.0 installation scripts available for download. Below are the steps you can follow to install Gitora 2.0 to your environment manually.

Installation of Middletier Components

1. For Linux and Mac OS, install Git manually from https://git-scm.com/. For Windows, Git is already included to this setup.
2. Move Gitora2 folder to the place you want to locate Gitora middle tier components.
   e.g /Users/username/
3. For Windows, open fix_parameters_WINDOWS.bat to edit.
   For Mac OS, open fix_parameters_MAC.sh to edit.
   For Linux, open fix_parameters_LINUX.sh to edit.
4. Set GITORA_ROOT parameter to the absolute path of the Gitora2 folder from step 1..
   e.g /Users/username/Gitora2
5. Set GITORA_DATABASE_CONNECTION_STRING parameter to the correct jdbc connection string to your database.
   e.g jdbc:oracle:thin:@192.168.1.99:1521:orcl
6. For Mac OS and Linux, set GIT_EXECUTABLE parameter to the path of git executable.
   e.g. /usr/bin/git
7. Open command line terminal and run fix_parameters_WINDOWS.bat for Windows, fix_parameters_MAC.sh for MAC OS, fix_parameters_LINUX.sh for Linux.

Installation of Database Components

1. Connect to the Oracle Database with the SYS user
2. Run 01_SYS.sql
3. Disconnect from SYS
4. Connect to the database with the GITORA user
5. Run 02_GITORA.sql
6. Ensure that there are no invalid packages in GITORA schema.
7. Create a row in table GITORA.T_TEMP_APPLICATION
8. Copy the contents of Gitora.xml to this newly created row
9. Issue a commit to save this row to the database.
10. Run 03_GITORA.sql
11. Disconnect from GITORA user
12. Connect to the database with SYS user
13. Open 04_SYS.sql and replace the two occurrences of @VERSIONCONTROL_HOST@ keyword with the IP address of your Gitora middle tier machine, where Gitora web server and middle tier components are installed. You need to ensure that your middle tier machine is accessible from database machine by checking network and firewall settings of both machines.
14. For Windows, change the value of “folderSeparator” parameter from ‘/’ to ‘\’.
15. Run 04_SYS.sql
16. Disconnect from SYS.

Starting Up Gitora

1. For Windows, run Gitora2/apache-tomcat-7.0.69/bin/startup.bat.
   For Mac OS and Linux, run Gitora2/apache-tomcat-7.0.69/bin/startup.sh
2. Open your browser and type http://[MIDDLE TIER IP ADDRESS]:7997/gitora/main.html name=Gitora

Gitora enables developers to move changes between databases with a single click.

Gitora can also be used to generate a DDL script from the Git repository which can be used to synchronize the source code between two databases. For example, this feature can be used to generate a script to syncronize a production database to the latest version of the source code in the pre-prod database. This tutorial explains how to use this feature in Gitora.

Assume that we are connected to the preprod database and would like to generate a sync script to upgrade prod to the same state the preprod database is in.

Open the Gitora Application. Select a repo. Next, click the  Git –> Utilities –> Get Script button from the menubar. A dialog shows up.

The Starting Commit ID is the Git Commit ID that is currently deployed in prod. Target Commit ID is the Git Commit ID that we would like to upgrade the prod database to.

Enter the Starting Git Commit ID and the Target Git Commit ID. Use the keyword HEAD if you’d like to use the latest commit in the current active branch as the Target Commit ID.

If you’d like the script to include soft objects (i.e. database objects that execute with CREATE OR REPLACE such as packages, views etc…) check the Include Soft Objects checkbox.

If you’d like the script to include hard objects (i.e. database objects that doesn’t execute with CREATE OR REPLACE such as tables) check the Include Hard Objects checkbox.

Click the Download DDL Script button. Gitora will generate a DDL script which, if executed, will syncronize a schema (or a group of schemas) which is currently at the Starting Commit ID, to the Target Commit ID.

As seen in this example, this feature can be used to apply the latest version of the source code to a production database. If the production database is at Git Commit Point A and the new production-ready version of the source code is at Git Commit Point B, a developer can enter A as the Starting Commit ID and B as the Target Commit ID and then execute the generated script in the production database.

Please note that the table generation is master-detail relationhip aware i.e. the generated tables will be in the correct order with master tables coming before detail tables that reference them.

Today, we are happy to announce the general availability of Gitora 2.0. We listened to the feature requests coming from the community and we think we are addressing the majority of them with this new version.

Object Type Support

Gitora now supports Object Types. Object Types are supported for the Oracle version 11g and above.

Generate Diff Scripts

Gitora 2.0 helps you create diff scripts between two commit points in your Git repository. Simply, enter the starting Commit Point ID and the target Commit Point ID and Gitora will generate a diff script for you to run in your target database.

Clone Source Code from Another Database

Gitora 2.0 supports cloning Git repositories from remote databases. Connect your local Gitora to the remote Gitora (which manages a remote database) and move the code base from one database to the other automatically.

Pull(Merge), Fetch Source Code from Another Database

Similar to cloning, developers can now pull(merge) source code from a remote database to the source code in a local database automatically if both database are running Gitora 2.0.

Many small improvements and bug fixes

Gitora 2.0 also comes with a number of improvements such as:
– A nicer Git repository browser
– Ability to view changes made in each object prior to issuing a commit
– Cancel any edits made to a PL/SQL object since check-out by clicking a button.

New Gitora Editions

Gitora 2.0 comes in three editions:

Gitora Community Edition

Every feature from Gitora 1.0 continues to be free in Gitora 2.0 Community Edition. We even added new features to it such as object type support, ability to view changes made in each object and canceling edits, along with many bug fixes.

Gitora Professional Edition

We believe proper version control is a big problem in the PL/SQL community, hurting the productivity of many PL/SQL developers and discouraging organizations from using PL/SQL. We think we can help. In order to justify further development on Gitora to help the community to solve this problem, remote database features in Gitora 2.0 will be available in the professional addition. The professional edition also comes with email support and unlimited access to 2.X released of Gitora. We think the benefits you will get from Gitora Professional Edition will far outweigh the small price tag we put on it.

Gitora Enterprise Edition

We know that large enterprises usually have their own unique needs. They might need customizations, new features, integration with other products and services they use, training, more timely and intensive support covered with an SLA etc… For these types of customers, we offer a fully customizable version of Gitora.

Gitora 2.0 Professional Edition comes with a long trial period and even if you decide not to purchase it, it gracefully downgrades to the community edition.

So what are you waiting for? Go download Gitora 2.0! 🙂