How can integration of one solution allow tools to support the product line variations and full product line development life cycle?
Charles Krueger of BigLever Software speaks about how his company uses IBM Rational tools in its framework. It uses Rational tools to consolidate processes into a single set of activities, reducing the duplication of efforts.
For example, the company is able to help a client build a single product and to customize duplicates as necessary, producing one system that can be configured easily in different ways for different systems. The streamlined process has yielded very high levels of productivity, efficiency, scalability, and time to market improvements.
The last few posts have been talking about the different product offerings in the IBM Rational portfolio. They help in automation of processes designed after years of extensive research based on interaction with customers and real world implementations. This helps in designing effective solutions for the real world problems faced by businesses today. All this information has been collated into two process frameworks catering specifically to agile software delivery teams. They are the Measured Capability Improvement Framework and Rational Practices.
Measured Capability Improvement Framework (MCIF)
The MCIF helps business owners and key stakeholders understand if the new approach adopted is delivering or not. This helps teams to continuously improve and innovate their software and systems delivery with the help of measurement and continuous improvement. MCIF also helps teams specialize and develop key competencies in agile development – practices which directly contribute towards business objectives.
Rational practices
The IBM Rational Method Composer helps agile teams with the right amount of leeway while dealing with processes, when they need it by providing Rational Practices. Irrespective of expertise level of the team, Rational Practices provides a customized approach to the various iterations of the Software Development Life Cycle and delivers more consistent results, quicker.
In our previous post, we spoke about the Jazz platform. There are other offerings from Rational which can positively impact the entire software development and delivery process. Various tools contribute towards different stages of the software development lifecycle. Capabilities like architecture management, change and release management, enterprise architecture management, requirements management, product, project and portfolio management, quality management and targeted solutions are all features of the various products in the Rational portfolio.
These capabilities can help you model and develop superior software and systems, enhance software delivery and lifecycle traceability throughout the entire SDLC and help you make the correct decisions to drive your business forward. Requirement management, alignment of business goals, adoption of best practices and assuring functionality, reliability, security and compliance are all possible with the Rational portfolio.
One of the main products in the Rational stable is Jazz – a technology platform for software delivery and collaboration. Built on the findings of extensive research, it is ideal for distributed teams working across a global network. It is pioneering the change in how people collaborate to build software while making them more productive, accountable and transparent.
Jazz helps teams collaborate, automate and report in a very efficient manner. Collaboration is achieved using social networks and virtualized team memory. This is very useful in overcoming spatial divide and differing time zones. Individual and team workflows are automated throughout the entire process – from requirements gathering to delivery and support. Jazz also enables implementation of processes – without any additional costs being incurred. Reporting is also enhanced using the Jazz platform. With an overview of the entire process and the ability to get real time information and insight into programs, utilization and projects, the team is better equipped to make more intelligent decisions. Information is available readily and contributes towards the continuous measurement of progress against the business objectives.
All of these also help in a cohesive integration of the different stages of the software delivery lifecycle.
Regardless of whether your clients are delivering software for IT, systems, enterprise modernization, or any combination of these, IBM Rational has the ALM solution your clients need.
In a recent report, ‘Decision Matrix: Selecting an Application Lifecycle Management Vendor,’ from industry analyst Ovum, states that “IBM has the broadest and arguably the deepest portfolio among all vendors profiled in this report.” With a Technology Score of 94.3% and a perfect market impact score of 10/10, all other vendors were ranked relative to IBM!
The report goes on to state that “the vendor has ensured that it stays ahead of the pack by having a good grasp of market demand and meeting it through tool support”.
In the 2010 Gartner Inc. report on “MarketScope for Application Lifecycle Management”, analysts – Duggan, Jim & Murphy, Thomas E., have each stated that “ALM is what enables sustainable agile practices. ALM creates a management framework providing consistent, auditable records of the decisions and activities of agile teams”
“Efficient coordination and automation of the delivery process requires new, collaborative approaches to the planning, measurement, execution, control and reporting of activities.”
“These new approaches are what differentiate current application life cycle management (ALM) tools, and what make ALM processes vital to leading-edge development activities.”
(Ref: Duggan, Jim & Murphy, Thomas E., “Market Scope for Application Lifecycle Management,” Gartner, Inc., 11 November 2010 ID Number: G00208572, pp. 2,6)
Fig. 2 IBM Rational earns “Strong Positive” with the highest possible rating from Gartner
Analysts Tony Baer, Chandranshu Singh, and Michael Azoff worked with Rational team to review numerous written submissions, briefings, and client references. The result? In terms of market impact and technology, they concluded that IBM Rational is the market leader! And they also determined that IBM Rational demonstrates clear leadership in market presence!
Businesses need to proactively manage change, instead of struggling to keep up. Our Enterprise Modernization story focuses on helping customers save
today and build a smarter foundation for future investments. We focus on 4 primary focus areas Applications, People, Teams and Infrastructure to achieve the optimal business value in today’s tough economic climate.
Applications are all about how you can be smart in maintaining and extending the applications that run your business
People focuses on the employees who build the applications. We have smart people. How can we help them deliver their best work?
Team is about smart ways for the people to work together to build high quality applications in a timely manner, especially in today’s geographically dispersed world.
Infrastructure is the other area that focuses on how customers can get the most out of the infrastructure they already have. Given today’s challenging economic times, customers are not interested in rip & replace, it is all about leveraging what they already have.
Let me know if any of these ring a bell and I could further substantiate these areas.
“The Department of Defense (DoD) Architecture Framework (DoDAF) defines a common approach for DoD architecture description development, presentation, and integration for both warfighting operations and business operations and processes. The Framework is intended to ensure that architecture descriptions can be compared and related across organizational boundaries, including Joint and multinational boundaries.” (DoD Architectural Framework, Version 1.0, 15 August 2003)
The architecture of complex systems and operational enterprises require explicit relationship management and understanding capacities. It is imperative to understand the enterprise’s architecture to deliver effective design, implementation, deployment, and maintenance of evolving systems.
The IBM Rational approach to DoDAF is comprehensive. Our total solution incorporates an integrated toolset, a proven systems engineering process, and a robust enablement capability designed to facilitate discovery, description, implementation, and evolution of the complex enterprise architecture associated with DoD’s operational missions.
The tooling builds upon capabilities supported by the optional, downloadable DoDAF feature for the the IBM Rational Eclipse-based modeling solution family of tools (IBM Rational Software Architect, IBM Rational Software Modeler and IBM Rational Systems Developer).
IBM Rational’s approach to DoDAF incorporates a proven process for systems engineering with a powerful, integrated tool suite. It leverages the content of DoDAF products as enterprise architecture is incrementally elaborated from abstract capabilities to concrete logical and physical representations.
A robust, scalable process, coupled with automation, drives development of consistent architectural content in a centralized model repository. This provides necessary enablement for the larger development organization and key decision-makers of the operational enterprise.
Reference: An IBM Rational Approach to the Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF) Whitepaper
Waters is a manufacturer of instrumentation used for chemical analysis that’s used in the food, pharmaceutical and a number of other industries. Waters was looking for better integration and connectivity with all of its systems- a common platform for all its systems.
“About 5 years ago Waters made a number of additional acquisitions overseas and essentially wound up with a situation where we had 4 separate software development groups. Basically, we wanted to have a common platform for all of our tools in our systems that we were developing. So, we needed to have a solution that allowed us to have collaboration across all sites, but added in a manner that [would work even if] everybody can’t be available at the same time” says Don Cunningham, a business analyst at Waters.
Rational provided them with tools which are inexpensive and enabled them to quickly and easily answer all financial questions. The solution that IBM offered to Waters is really a system of systems.
To understand and learn more about the IBM Rational toolset, visit our page.
Web site security and compliance is a top priority for organisations. It protects sensitive company, customer and employee data, helps meet regulatory and corporate compliance requirements and defends against the high cost of a data breach. Web sites and online applications are prime targets for hackers as they provide straight access to corporate and personal data.
IBM’s Rational AppScan and Rational Policy Tester are Web site security and compliance solutions which automate application and content analysis. Organisations can identify weaknesses, assess compliance requirements, and improve online systems’ accuracy and reliability. The software helps IT and security professionals protect against the threat of attacks and data breaches.
If Web applications collect or exchange sensitive or personal data, an organization’s security professional’s job is harder now than ever before. Implementing Quality Assurance and development policies in the security testing process produces secure applications of higher-quality applications at a reasonable cost.
Rational’s Web application security solutions – the IBM Rational AppScan product family is ideal for all stages of development and for all types of testers.
The products provide:
Automated Scanning and Testing for common vulnerabilities – such as SQL-Injection, Cross-Site Scripting, and Buffer Overflow
Broad application coverage
Advanced remediation capabilities
Over 40 standard security compliance reports
Web site compliance solutions automate content scanning and analysis to help ensure compliance with privacy, accessibility, and key industry regulations. Other solutions help organizations reduce their risk by identifying issues impacting compliance and site usability.
We have, in the past 2 parts, discussed how to use IBM Rational suite of software solutions to integrate quality into the various parts of information technology and the software development lifecycle.
In this final installment in the series, we conclude our roundup of the different tools available in the IBM Rational software testing and quality management portfolio.
Code Quality and Embedded Systems
Most code quality management is not efficient enough to allow source code to run for days, months, or years on end. Hard to find memory leaks cause havoc in applications. Developers need to write more reliable code faster across a variety of platforms and devices. Quality management ensures more reliable code earlier in the software development lifecycle with fewer worries during deployment.
IBM Rational quality management solutions for developers provide:
Run-time analysis, memory leak detection, performance profiling, and component testing.
Support for Java, C/C++, Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, Microsoft Visual C/C++, Microsoft Visual Basic, and embedded applications
Application Security and Compliance
Web site security and compliance solutions identify vulnerabilities and assess compliance requirements to improve the accuracy and reliability of online systems – a pressing need in business today.
Web site security and compliance is a top priority for organisations intent on protecting sensitive data, on meeting compliance requirements and on defending against the high cost of a data breach. Web sites are high-focus targets for hackers because they provide a direct route to corporate or personal data.
IBM Rational’s AppScan and Rational Policy Tester – Web site security and compliance solutions, automate application and content analysis. These solutions help organisations identify vulnerabilities, assess compliance requirements, and improve the accuracy and reliability of online systems.
