Model based analysis of ibm's tools for collaborative application lifecycle management

Master's thesis in Computer scienceThis thesis is an analysis of three of IBM's latest tools for Collaborative Application Lifecycle Management (C/ALM), Rational Team Concert, Rational Requirements Composer and Rational Quality Manager. Each tool focuses on a different phase in the development. RTC was first released at 25th of June 2008 1, RQM followed with its first release at 16th of March 2, and last released was RRC at 25th of May 2009 3. To hopefully make the analysis a little bit easier to understand, figures have been made of different parts of each of the programs. The general models shows a brief overview of everything within the program, while the other models take a little bit more detailed approach. The figures in question is has been created with using another tool from IBM, Rational Software Architect. Rational Requirements Composer is probably the smallest of the three tools, and focuses on the planning phase. It is used to create the conditions which a new program need to fulfill, or the conditions which a new version of the program needs to be able to do. Rational Team Concert is the program which has been most extensively tried in this thesis, it focuses on the development phase of a project. People work in teams to develop, source code is written locally, but is shared when the user think its time to share it. Rational Quality Manager is probably the most comprehensive of the three tools, and focuses on the stage of testing applications. It includes a lab management tool to keep track of all machines, which one is available and which one is not at all times. While all of the tools can be used standalone, using them together has its benefits, and it could make the transition from phase to phase easier. It also makes it easier for users of each tool to work simultaneously, to increase efficiency