Developing and Deploying Siebel Business Applications > Overview of Developing a Siebel Application > About Developing a Siebel Application >

About the Local Development Environment

A local database is a snapshot of the server database that is stored on a remote computer. A developer who uses Siebel Tools works on a local database that the developer installs on their personal computer. The data in each local database is a subset of the server database, as determined by the visibility rules that you assign to each developer.

Figure 4 illustrates the local development environment.

Figure 4. Local Development Environment

A developer checks out object definitions from the server database, modifies these definitions, and then checks them back in to the server database. The check-out and check-in process does the following:

• Check out. Copies projects from the server database to the local database and locks the projects on the server database. Locking the project on the server database prevents multiple developers from simultaneously checking out the same object.
• Check in. Copies projects from the local database to the server database and releases the lock on the server database.

Working on a local database rather than working directly on the server database provides the following benefits:

• Allows you to remove unwanted changes without overwriting the work of other developers. Working on a local database provides you the option of not checking in changes to the server database. Until you check in changes, the server database remains a clean backup.
• Allows several developers to concurrently use a single repository.
• Allows developers to prototype configuration changes by locking a project locally rather than checking out and locking the project on the server database.
• Allows you to work remotely because you are not required to be connected to the development server.

Siebel CRM does not update Siebel Web templates during project check-in and check-out. To manage Siebel Web template files, you must use a third-party source file control application or a manual process. For more information, see Moving Web Templates, Image Files, and Cascading Style Sheets.

For more information, see Checking Out Projects from the Siebel Server and Checking Projects In to the Siebel Server.