Managing multiple versions of models

We have a big requirement to more effectively manage multiple versions of models. In the future, we will have to maintain multiple versions of models and VDBs in order to guarantee compability for some clients while possibly providing new functionality for other clients using the same models.

We will also have "core models" (again possibly multiple releases) of business concepts which will be included in VDBs for specific clients and systems, then changes will need to be merged in from this one core set to many models/VDBs in the future. I posted a question to the SME list about this a few months ago ("Effectively version controlling models"). Ramesh provided some helpful ideas, such as stacking of VDBs, which we would prefer not to do because of foreseen management and performance (query planning) problems, and also how we can deploy multiple versions of the same VDB.

The problem remains however, that the only way we have at present to work with models is interactively through Teiid designer, and the only way to merge selectively (rather than replacing models) is manually. This process would potentially have to be repeated multiple times for each changeset. The customer is concerned that this approach will become unmanageable in the future.

Being able to merge through the designer would be great, but also non-interactively and automatable in some way too. Ideally, we would like to see a greater seperation of model management from the designer (in the same that it was done in a set of reusable classes which the designer makes use of also) so we have the option of using automatable tools (ie. maven) or building or own tools to do this merging.