Referencing a Definitive Software Library Asset Artifact in a Workspace?

We have been getting lots of questions around how developers and architects can reference open source components, WSDLs or other binaries that are under governance in their workspace?    Dr Gili Mendel recently wrote an explanation on this that I wanted to share with you below.   By referencing the artifacts in the DSL you prevent teams from having to repeatedly copy asset artifacts around or version the same component multiple times in different SCM systems.   This has the added benefit of allowing you to control access to these components and shut them off when licenses expire or the asset artifacts are no longer supported.

“How does the workspace know how to consume one of these linked artifacts, such as an open source component”

Workspace Link to a RAM artifact

When you “drag” an artifact from a RAM repository into your workspace, the RAM plugin brings down the  file to your workspace (so that you can use it disconnected as well), but it marks it as a derived resource.  A derived resource will not be checked in/out a SCM by Eclipse…. similar to a compiled .class file.

The RAM plugin will also create a link (an entry for that artifact in a control file see image below).   This control file (or changes to this control file) will be checked into the SCM.   When another user checks out this file (or changes to this file), the RAM plugin will parse it, and will bring down the artifacts to that users as well.

The build process can use RAM provided Ant scripts, Ant lib. calls, or Java Calls to bring down “linked” artifacts.   These calls look for the rambuildercontrol.xml file and act on it in a headless environment

Traceability when publishing an artifact into RAM

The Eclipse client provides an asset packaging editor that allow you to provide information about the asset (name, description, version….) as well as a collection of resources from your workspace.   When press the submit/update button, the editor will baseline the projects involved (if it is a TEAM based project, like CVS, Rational Team Concert, Subversion, ClearCase….) and publish the asset annotating (the server, baseline id and such) the artifact with the origin’s information.   The build process, as I noted in the demo,  annotated the .ear with a the build id, and a link back to the BuildForge job or other build automation software.

When a user consumes an asset in Eclipse, the Rational Asset Manager plugin will look for these traceability annotation on the artifacts.   If they exist, the plugin will give you the option to attach to the baseline, or the latest stream level.



Voice Rational Asset Manager Deep Dive

This week we had the Rational Voice event, where we meet with a select group of customers to discuss our product road maps and do a deep dive on product capabilities.   I wanted to share the slides we presented at the deep dive session on how to define an asset governance model in Rational Asset Manager v7.2 .  In the session we covered what the governance constructs were in Rational Asset Manager and what the best practices are for establishing a definitive software library.   Here are the slides. If you are interested in participating in future Rational Voice events send me an email and I can get you added to our select group of customers that are invited to the event.  carlos.ferreira at us.ibm.com

Scripts to Automate Asset Use and Creation

It is often useful to integrate your definitive software library with existing processes.  Examples of these processes include a build process that must retrieve approved open source or third party components from the definitive software library(DSL).  A build process that publishes final gold releases to the build system.   Deployment processes that must retrieve approved release implementations out of the DSL.    In this 30 minute – 4 part tutorial, I explain how you can install ANT and the Rational Asset Manager Scripting client files to be able to run scripts to download an asset, publish or modify an asset including defining dependency relationships on an asset.   The tutorial is a primer to get you started.   The Rational Asset Manager documentation provides a comprehensive reference to all the available capabilities.  I have also included the sample scripts here.

ScriptingWithRationalAssetManagerv7.2

Sample Scripts used in this tutorial

Automating the Delivery Of Reliable Software

This demonstration provides an overview of how to use IBM® Rational® Asset Manager as your definitive software library to build and publish assets. See how Rational Asset Manager, Rational Build Forge and Rational AppScan can automate the delivery and governance of reliable software builds.

Demonstration by Dr Gili Mendel.

Rational Asset Manager v7.2 is Available

Rational Asset Manager v7.2 is Available.   Learn what is new in this 6 part Webcast series.   In Part 1 of Rational Asset Manager v 7.2 What’s New, see how you can search for assets in the Web client.

Rational Asset Manager v 7.2 What’s New Part 1 Search

In Part 2 of Rational Asset Manager v 7.2 on Jazz  What’s New,  see how you can create assets in the Web client.
Rational Asset Manager v 7.2 on Jazz What’s New Part 2 Create & Review Assets

In Part 3 of Rational Asset Manager v 7.2 on Jazz  What’s New,  see how you can define the asset governance process for each role, community and asset type in the Web client.

Rational Asset Manager v 7.2 on Jazz What’s New Part 3 Define Governance Process

In Part 4 of Rational Asset Manager v 7.2 on Jazz  What’s New,  see how you can Use and Report on Assets in the Web client.

Rational Asset Manager v 7.2 on Jazz What’s New Part 4 Use and Report on Assets

In Part 5 of Rational Asset Manager v 7.2 on Jazz  What’s New,  see how you can Use and Create  Assets in Development in the Rich client and other build tools.
Rational Asset Manager v 7.2 on Jazz What’s New Part 5 Use and Create  Assets in Development

Learn what is new in this 6 part Webcast series.   In Part 6 of Rational Asset Manager v 7.2 on Jazz  What’s New,  see how you have more flexible options for deploying RAM and where you can learn more information.
Rational Asset Manager v 7.2 on Jazz What Else is New

Rational Asset Manager v7.2 Is Announced

IBM Rational Software announces the September 24, 2009 availability of Rational Asset Manager v7.2. This is the fourth major release since the product was first launched 2 years and 3 months ago. Perhaps the most significant aspects of this release are:

1. Automated software asset governance that scales to the enterprise using custom Asset Lifecycle & policies.

2. Affordability for small, medium and large enterprises by leveraging flexible deployment and licensing options.

3. Enterprise Collaboration Application Lifecycle Management. Rational Asset Manager is now built with Jazz technology.

IBM Rational Asset Manager V7.2 enhancements and their benefits include:

• New Jazz-driven life-cycle management capabilities to manage asset workflow from concept, development, build, deployment and retirement. Reduce the costs of governing assets.

• New integrations with IBM Rational Team Concert and other Jazz built products. Connect and federate an asset’s metadata with the related Jazz Application Lifecycle Managed resources. Reduce maintenance costs of assets and reduce the time to find relevant asset resource information.

• Better quantify return on investment and allocate resources more effectively by using new asset and community level reports.  Visualize usage and popularity of assets with new graphical analytics.

• New Build Forge® integration integrates assets with the software assembly process. Control what goes out the door and reduce risks by ensuring builds use only approved assets. Automate asset publishing during the build process.

• New purchase options, IBM Rational Asset Manager Enterprise Edition and Standard Edition making it more affordable for all enterprise sizes.

The entire team is really excited to see this release get into the hands of customers.   There were early signs that this was going to be a great value add release based on the positive feedback we got during our beta program.

Enterprise Modernization and How Rational Can Help

Here is a new Webcast that explains the business challenges associated with Enterprise Modernization and how Rational Asset Manager and Rational Quality Manager can help.

In this Webcast Brian Bryson the Market Manager for Quality Solutions and Carlos Ferreira the product manager for Rational Asset Manager describe how apply best practices, tools and strategies for lifecycle quality management of modernization projects. Manage your assets by being more efficient at creating, using and maintaining solutions for business advantage!

Definitive Software Library Whitepaper

These days, everyone is talking about the need to do more with less. Challenging economic conditions have led to smaller development teams and intense pressure to shorten time to market and reduce costs. Pressure to meet legal, regulatory, internal and technical compliance requirements continues to grow and it’s difficult to keep up using only manual reviews. However, these challenges can drive companies to take shortcuts that may ultimately increase costs and result in the creation of software that’s difficult and costly to maintain, enhance or change to meet changing business needs. Companies often have trouble finding or even defining the high-value core competency assets that are driving business value in the organization. In situations like these, it’s essential to get control of and understand your assets to reduce your solution delivery costs.

Development teams sometimes turn to open source or third-party components to expedite development, but these components may not be supported in the long run or support contracts for maintenance may not be available, which means that troubleshooting problems in the future becomes next to impossible. Or, teams attempt to reduce development costs by outsourcing to a lower-cost provider. However, if the team has failed to properly store and document its assets, it can take providers weeks of initial work to search through thousands of work products scattered throughout a variety of domain-specific repositories before they find the assets they need, increasing the cost of the engagement.

In this White paper I explain how a definitive software library can be used to address these challenges and reduce costs associated with managing and using your software assets.

IBM Chemical and Petroleum Integrated Information Framework

IBM Chemical and Petroleum Integrated Information Framework Solution is the latest offering to be powered by IBM Rational Asset Manager. Rational Asset Manager is helping to reduce costs by managing build time assets and the knowledge assets associated with petroleum industry domain specific events, models and services.

BPM BlueWorks powered by Rational Asset Manager

Rational Asset Manager provides the asset management services in IBM’s new BPM offering. The latest offering built with RAM is the BPM BlueWorks. You are able to publish, search and use BPM assets using the web client. RAM provides integrations with WebSphere Business Modeler and WebSphere Integration Developers technical teams that allows them to search from within their existing tools by connecting to RAM powered asset management repositories like the BPM BlueWorks site. This follows last month’s launch of RAM providing the asset management services for the IBM Blue Cloud