Analysis must not connect to database

In a large organization, there's a strong benefit to having a central Sonar server for reporting and management but multiple build environments managed by different teams. These could well be geographically dispersed. In the current Sonar architecture, database updates occur as part of the Sonar Analysis. If the location database server is on another network from where the analysis is run, the length of time for the analysis can be considerable due to network latency.

The feature requested is to create an offline/batch mode for processing where the analysis could be run and a SQL or XML file generated instead of writing directly to the database. The file could then be processed later. Separating the Sonar analysis from the database update would free up the CI server on the build machine to perform builds. The database update could then be run separately, the cost being the delay in seeing the results.

Another benefit would be for really large analysis that run multiple hours. If the database connection fails, the analysis needs to be re-run. In batch mode, the analysis data could be generated and moved to the database server (via scp, etc). The data could then be incorporated into the database using a local SQL connection removing the network issue.