FUNCTIONALITY
All too often the software development process is treated as a cost drain within
business rather than as a value generator. The lack of visibility that IT has
within the business is partly to blame for that. The undoubted high cost of
software development to many businesses is also a reflection of the lack of
progress in optimising software delivery. However, a new generation of
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools is rising to the challenge of
improving development productivity, and also addressing the need to inform
business executives about the process of development and of how applications
perform post-deployment. This information then feeds in to tools that can help
manage project resources, and better align application development to
business needs.
Borland is at the forefront of this evolutionary turn in application development,
and its Software Delivery Optimisation (SDO) vision now goes beyond ALM, to
embrace business at higher levels, and also combines tools and methodologies
to offer software development as a complete package. Part of this growth also
reflects changes in what customers want, so where Borland’s customers and
partners were looking for spot product solutions in the past, this has now
changed to solutions, and Borland is geared to delivering that need.
In tune with this growth, the recent acquisition of TeraQuest, the Capability
Maturity Modelling (CMM) specialist, has enabled Borland to infuse CMM
process, as well as emphasise process in general throughout its solutions.
Borland has always maintained an agnostic position towards platforms and
development methodologies, so it can now support more formal CMM-type
environments, as well as the more rapid development styles of Agile Software
Development, such as Extreme Programming, as well as custom and home-
grown practices. Whether customers want to use the Object Management
Group’s Model Driven Architecture (MDA), or adopt the IBM Rational’s
Rational Unified Process (RUP), Borland tools can provide the support. In
addition it can offer professional services, such as mentoring in any
development practice coupled with the Borland tools, thereby offering a
complete solution to meet the customer’s needs.
SDO is designed to enable IT organisations to reduce their software delivery
risk by transforming software development into a managed business process.
One way it does this is by aligning business stakeholders with software
development, and in turn aligning software development with IT Operations.
The manifestation of the SDO vision is divided into three projects: Themis,
Hyperion, and Prometheus, representing visibility of IT at increasingly higher
levels of the business. The various deliverables within these projects are
occurring simultaneously, so while the projects are layers of an ‘onion’ model
they are not milestones on one chronology.
The first deliverables, designated Core Software Development Platform (Core
SDP) Functionality, are as follows (indicating the project source in brackets):
• Team-Work Infrastructure (Themis): Role-Based Development, Change
Management, Traceability, Artifact Management, Process Management,
and Technical Foundation.
• Visibility and Predictability (Hyperion): Decision Support.
• ERP For Software Delivery (Prometheus): Risk Management.
Product Analysis
Product Operation
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Technology Infrastructure
There are several unique competitive differentiators in this offering compared
to the standalone ALM component products. The Core SDP components
provide a degree of integration that was not available before in Borland’s ALM
products. So, where previously a common console launched separate tools, on
Core SDP the functionality of various tools are embedded at a deeper level
within one common console; therefore depending on the role of the user, there
is seamless access to functionality.
This enables the broadest set of ALM functionality to work together. For
example, a single repository holds requirements and there is traceability
between these requirements and developed code. Any changes to
requirements are immediately available to all of the roles, so that for example,
testers can be sure they are testing to the correct specifications. There is also
auditing capability, so that in a rigorous practice (needed for example in
safety-critical applications), checking code in and out can only be done against
an assigned task and/or with the approval of higher-level managers. Any
changes can be time stamped and records maintained of who did what and
when. With regulatory and IT Governance demands, Core SDP provides the
necessary management capabilities.
Another key benefit in using Core SDP is that it supports multiple platforms.
Although architected on a Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) framework, Core
SDP provides strong interoperability with Microsoft .NET environments.
Core SDP provides customised desktop environments optimised for the tasks of
Analysts, Architects, Developers, and Testers. Overlaying each of the roles and
tying these roles into a single team environment, is a series of cross-platform
services delivering the teamwork foundation as well as communication and
collaboration services and cross-platform visibility. The unified architecture
provides the foundation for modelling, unified team repositories, centralised
requirements repositories, artefacts, and metadata, see Figure 1.
Core SDP includes tight integration of Borland’s ALM tools suite, including
requirements management, modelling, J2EE Integrated Development
Environment (IDE), change and version management, and additional product
sets. Each of the customised roles is offered in versions built on the Eclipse
3.0 framework and the JBuilder/PrimeTime framework. The platform includes
extensive cross-role and cross-platform functionality, giving software teams
access to integrated tools with job function and role-based access to specific
functionality.
Specifically, the Core SDP architecture includes tool suites for the following roles:
• Core::Analyst – Allows business analysts to clearly translate business
objectives into functional software requirements, ensuring that end-user
expectations, compliance mandates, and quality objectives are met.
• Core::Architect – Enables architects to keep specifications, models, and
code in sync throughout the entire application lifecycle, especially in the
face of changing business requirements.
• Core::Developer – Combines advanced tooling with a developer-focused
view into relevant specifications, change requests, and test cases.
• Core::Tester – Guarantees applications achieve functional, compliance and
quality goals by linking testing teams with defect tracking and requirements
management.