Initial problem

Due to the situation that host and client server developments were performed at different locations, the development cycle had become more and more complex with little transparency for everyone involved. The use of different building and distribution methods on the respective platforms had led to different procedures for every development system. One of many problems this situation caused was a redundant source management with CA Libarian and PVCS Version Manager. Hence, restoring a specific configuration caused unnecessary efforts. Considering these circumstances, setting up and maintaining test environments inevitably caused severe problems. Different operating systems were used for the developments and each platform had its own revision control. Implementing new requirements caused major challenges for the developers because of a very ‘inflexible’ infrastructure.

Specific objectives

• Realizing a ‘single point of change’: all changes are gathered at one central point, regardless of the target platform.
• Establishing a ‘single point of view’: a central point offers access to all information, regardless of someone’s role (e.g. developer, change manager).
• Linking requests and subsequent modifications to improve the traceability of change requests.
• Modifications must be traceable from the initial change request to commence of operations.
• Revisions need to be restorable based on the respective source code.
  • Corrections
  • Audit security
• Establishing a unified development process.
  • Regardless of programming language or used tools.
• Reducing the required support for different programming environments.
• Supporting developers, project managers, and administration.

Realization

Merant Dimensions was incrementally introduced. During the first project phase, all tools used for revision control were removed and the sources were brought together in Merant Dimensions. This phase also included the version management, the development of test configurations, and a change management. Additionally, during that phase, the build management for the platforms Windows NT, Sun Solaris, and OS/390 was revised and implemented. Objectives of the following project phases are mapping the total change management in Merant Dimensions and removing the existing remote systems. This includes a traditional change management with regards to the software development as well as concerning the database changes and changes to the operating host environment.

Our services for this project

• Analyzing the performance and defining targets.
• Evaluating different configuration management tools.
• Implementing the defined processes in Merant Dimensions.
• Migration of the sources.
• Training the developers.
• Developing little enhancements to Merant Dimensions.

Facts and figures

• 160 developers at three sites.
• Migration of about 45,000 sources from CA Librarian.
• Migration of about 8,000 sources from PVCS Version Manager.
• One Sun Solaris server running Merant Dimensions.
• Support for each platform and their respective programming languages:
  • Windows NT (Java)
  • Sun Solaris (Cobol, Java, C)
  • OS/390 (Cobol, Assembler, C)
• Using Python as scripting language
  • Interface to PVCS Dimensions
  • Build management

Project data

Start of project

• Performance and target concepts
• Evaluation

Implementation

• Adding more detail to the target concept.
• Implementing PVCS Dimensions.
• Realizing the build management.
• Trainings
• Migration of PVCS Version Manager and CA Librarian.

For further information and a non-binding consulting, please contact Christian Kreutzmann (+49 04 533 020).