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Tracking the changes of the artifacts is crucial in a process-oriented enterprise. This article guides in how to monitor the IBM® Rational® System Architect model changes by using IBM® Rational Team Concert™ as your change management tool.
- Rational System Architect
- IBM® Rational® System Architect is a leading enterprise architecture tool that provides integrated support for business, information, systems, and technology domains. It offers the most complete enterprise modeling solution by enabling users to analyze corporate business processes, build new component-based applications, redesign the back-end databases, or document the legacy systems.
- Rational Team Concert
- IBM Rational Team Concert is a collaborative software delivery environment that empowers project teams to simplify, automate, and govern software delivery. Rational Team Concert extends the capabilities of the team with integrated work item, build, software configuration management (SCM) and the collaborative infrastructure of the Rational® Jazz™ Team Server.
- Open Source Lifecycle Collaboration
- Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) is a community of software developers and organizations that are working to standardize the way that software lifecycle tools can share data (for example, requirements, defects, test cases, plans, or code). (See the link in Resources.)
OSLC integration in Rational System Architect
Through Version 11.4, Rational System Architect supports the OSLC integration by exposing the enterprise artifacts as an OSLC provider. It also supports the consumption (use) of the OSLC services as an OSLC consumer for various Rational tools, such as IBM® Rational Team Concert™, IBM® Rational® Requirements Composer, IBM® Rational® DOORS®, and IBM® Rational® Change software.
Prerequisites for this exercise
You must have these applications installed:
- Rational System Architect Version 11.4 or later
- Rational Team Concert Version 3.0.1 or later
Model and review enterprise artifacts in Rational System Architect
This article explains the Rational System Architect-OSLC integration with Rational Team Concert by using the following use case as an example:
The business modeler models the blueprint of the model and requests comments from the reviewer by associating the model with the Rational Team Concert change request. The reviewer will be notified (through the email system in Rational Team Concert) when the modeler finishes the model and sets the state of the change request to Fixed. The reviewer will review the model changes and can then take either of these actions:
- If the model looks fine, the reviewer moves the Rational Team Concert change set status to the Resolve state to indicate that the model has been captured correctly and the task is finished.
- If any change is required, the reviewer moves the Rational Team Concert change set status to the Triage state, which indicates that the modeler needs to change the model by providing the respective comments in the change set.
Again, the modeler will be notified through the Rational Team Concert mail system for further action.
Enable history for an encyclopedia
To track the enterprise architecture artifact changes, a modeler needs to enable the history of the encyclopedia by using the Encyclopedia Manager feature in Rational System Architect:
- Start the Encyclopedia Manager, and select the Tools > History > Status menu options, as shown in Figure 1, to enable the history for the encyclopedia that will undergo the changes that you need to track.
Figure 1. History menu in the Encyclopedia Manager
- Check the Full radio buttons for both Entity and File to enable the full history, as Figure 2 shows.
Figure 2. Enabling history
Create the consumer key in Rational Team Concert to use in Rational System Architect
In this use case, Rational System Architect acts as an OSLC consumer of Rational Team Concert artifacts in the change set. To do this, you need to create the consumer key (inbound) in the Rational Team Concert, although you will configure it later in Rational System Architect. In other words, you create the keys in Rational Team Concert (as a provider) for Rational System Architect (as a consumer) to link to its resources.
Create a consumer key in Rational Team Concert
- Open Rational Team Concert in the browser in administrator mode:
https://server name:port number/ccm/admin - Under Communication, click Consumers (Inbound).
- Create a consumer key and a consumer secret key in Rational Team Concert:
- On the admin page, select Consumers (Inbound) under Communication.
- Enter the consumer name and consumer secret, and then retype the consumer secret and click Register.
Figure 3. Creating the consumer key in Rational Team Concert
Configure the consumer key in Rational System Architect
- Start Rational System Architect and load an encyclopedia.
- Click Tools > Service Provider Configuration, as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4. Service provider configuration in Rational System Architect
- Under the Servers Established pane in the Configure Service Provider window (Figure 5), click the Add button.
Figure 5. Add the OSLC provider
- Provide the name, root service URL, consumer key, and consumer secret that you created in the Create a consumer key in Rational Team Concert step.
- After providing those details in the Register Service Provider view (Figure 6), click the Register button.
Figure 6. Register the OSLC provider
- Click the Add button under the Collaboration Links section in the Configure Service Provider dialog window.
Figure 7. Add the OSLC provider's service
- When you see the List of Service view, select the provider name for Servers (RTC is selected in this example), as shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8. Select the service provider
Note:
After you have selected the provider, if you have not been authenticated as a user already, you will see the Authorize window shown in Figure 9, where you will need to log in with your user ID and password. (OAuth is the authentication method used in this integration.)
Figure 9. OSLC authentication
- After you are authorized as a user, the service under the provider will be listed as shown in Figure 10. Select a service, and then click OK.
Figure 10. OSLC services listed
- The selected service will be added to the Collaboration Links (lower) pane of the Configure Service Provider dialog window (Figure 11). Close this window.
Figure 11. OSLC provider configured and service selected
Link the Rational System Architect artifacts with the Rational Team Concert change set
- In Rational System Architect, a new toolbar is available for you to choose or create a CR (change request). Click the Configure button in the toolbar displayed.
Figure 12. Associate a CR
Note:
The Create Link dialog window from Rational Team Concert will be displayed in Rational System Architect.
Figure 13. Rational Team Concert OSLC dialog window to select the CR
You can create a new artifact or use an existing artifact. For this use case, the modeler will create a new artifact.
- Choose the Create artifact radio button (see Figure 14), provide the necessary details, and then click OK.
The new change request will be created in Rational Team Concert.
Figure 14. Create a new defect artifact in Rational Team Concert
The change request that you just created will be shown in the toolbar in Rational System Architect.
- The changes to the Rational System Architect model will be tracked through this.
Figure 15. Associate a CR for modification
- Open the model that needs to be changed, make appropriate changes, (you can create new model or delete or change the existing model), and then click View > Object History to check the modifications.
Figure 16. Create or update a model in Rational System Architect
- Click the Search button and select All in the Class of Object (see Figure 17) to find the details of modifications to the model.
All of the changes will be displayed. The CR against which the modifications are made will be displayed under the CR column in the Object History table.
Figure 17. View the CR changes in the history
- Hover your mouse cursor over any CR listed in the CR column of the Object History table to display the hover dialog. It is being displayed from Rational Team Concert but in Rational System Architect. You can click the Details button (Figure 18) to navigate to Rational Team Concert.
Figure 18. Rational Team Concert rich hover dialog window
- Open the same diagram in SA-XT (the Rational System Architect version for web read-write access to the repository), and copy the SA-XT stable URL from the URL tab in the browser window. In this case, this is the stable URL:
http://localhost/saxt/ip/getpage.aspx?DDID=605&url=stype%253d1%2526sname%253dxxx%255cSQL2008%2526encyn%253dDemoOSLCNew%2526wrkID%253d0
Figure 19. Diagram view in Rational System Architect XT (SA-XT)
- Move the CR status to the Fixed state, and add the SA-XT stable URL in the comments section. If the reviewer's email ID is available in Rational Team Concert, the reviewer will be notified of the CR change.
- The reviewer opens the model in the browser by using the SA-XT stable URL mentioned in the comments of the change request. If the model changes are fine, then the reviewer will move the CR to verified state. If the model requires more changes, then the reviewer will move the CR back to Implementation state, and the modeler will be notified.
Learn
- Learn more about Rational System Architect:
- Browse the developerWorks page for Rational System Architect, and watch the online demonstration or read the written transcript.
- Check the Rational System Architect Information Center for documentation for all versions, or get support from the Rational System Architect help topics.
- For additional help, see Configuring products as providers and consumers for linking in the Rational System Architect information center.
- Also see License requirements for Rational System Architect XT and SA-XT Web Service.
- Find out more about Rational Team Concert:
- Find Rational Team Concert articles and links to many other resources on IBM developerWorks, and check the product overview page, features and benefits, system requirements, and the user information center.
- Check the Rational Team Concert page on Jazz.net.
- Watch the Using Rational Team Concert in a globally distributed team webcast or a demonstration of the Dashboards and reports, or listen to the podcast about IBM Rational Team Concert and Jazz.
- OSLC (Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration) is a community of software developers and organizations that are working together to make it easier to use software development lifecycle tools in combination
- Visit the Rational software area on developerWorks for technical resources and best practices for Rational Software Delivery Platform products.
- Subscribe to the developerWorks weekly email newsletter, and choose the topics to follow. Stay current with developerWorks technical events and webcasts focused on a variety of IBM products and IT industry topics.
- Attend a free developerWorks Live! briefing to get up-to-speed quickly on IBM products and tools, as well as IT industry trends.
- Watch developerWorks on-demand demos, ranging from product installation and setup demos for beginners to advanced functionality for experienced developers.
- Improve your skills. Check the Rational training and certification catalog, which includes many types of courses on a wide range of topics. You can take some of them anywhere, any time, and many of the "Getting Started" ones are free.
Get products and technologies
- Download a free, fully enabled trial version of Rational System Architect.
- Download Rational Team Concert from Jazz.net and try it, free, on up to 10 projects for as long as you want (requires registration).
- Evaluate IBM software in the way that suits you best: Download it for a trial, try it online, use it in a cloud environment, or spend a few hours in the SOA Sandbox learning how to implement service-oriented architecture efficiently.
Discuss
- Participate in the Enterprise Architecture and Business Architecture forum, where you can share information about methods, frameworks, and tool implementations. Discussions include tool-specific technical discussions about Rational System Architect.
- Join the Rational Team Concert discussions or ask questions in the Jazz.net forums.
- Rate or review Rational software. It’s quick and easy.
- Share your knowledge and help others who use Rational software by writing a developerWorks article. Find out what makes a good developerWorks article and how to proceed.
- Follow Rational software on Facebook, Twitter (@ibmrational), and YouTube, and add your comments and requests.
- Ask and answer questions and increase your expertise when you get involved in the Rational forums, cafés, and wikis.
- Get social about thought leadership. Join the Rational community to share your Rational software expertise and get connected with your peers
Jothi Subramani holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and has been a software architect for more than a decade. In the past six years, while involved in the design and development of Rational System Architect, she has made significant contributions to the Explorer, BPMN, and Integration modules.
Nagabhushan Seshagiri Rao holds a master's degree in computer science and has been a software engineer for more than eight years. In the past five years, while involved in the design and development of Rational System Architect, he has made significant contributions to the Reporting, Metamodel, and Integration modules, either through OSLC or point-to-point.
Table of contents
- Before you start
- Model and review enterprise artifacts in Rational System Architect
- Enable history for an encyclopedia
- Create the consumer key in Rational Team Concert to use in Rational System Architect
- Link the Rational System Architect artifacts with the Rational Team Concert change set
- Resources
- About the authors
- Comments
